Monday, May 31, 2010

IAS Annual Symposium

By IAS, *Coleman Barks, Rumi and the Sufism Symposium* - International Association of Sufism - Novato, CA, USA
Monday, May 24, 2010

“Human Dignity and the 21st Century”

Coleman Barks will read Rumi’s poetry with music by Talia Toni Marcus and her soaring violin, at the opening of the 2010 Sufism Symposium, at 7:00 pm, Friday, June 25, at Angelico Hall, Dominican University of California, San Rafael, CA. Tickets are $25 by mail before June 15 or $30 at the door.

The Symposium, “Human Dignity and the 21st Century,” continues on Saturday and Sunday, June 26 and 27, at Embassy Suites Hotel, San Rafael, CA.

The Annual Symposium will include members of IAS as well as many delegates from other Sufi Orders and countries.

Scheduled to appear:

Nahid Angha, Ph.D.
is Co-Director of the International Association of Sufism (IAS), founder of the International Sufi Women Organization, the main representative of the IAS to the United Nations (NGO/DPI), and inductee to the Marin Women's Hall of Fame. Her works for global peace earned the IAS the "Messenger of Manifesto 2000" recognition by the UNESCO. Her lectures include:"Human Rights, Responsibility and Spirituality, "Humanitarian Intervention: A Way towards Global Peace, U N; Women in Islam, Cape Town; Sufism: Literature and Poetry, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D. C.; Sufism, Universal Forum of Cultures: Spain 2004, Mexico 2007.

Sheikha Ayshegul Ashki al-Jerrahi, MA, HHP
is a Sufi teacher within Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi Community, directed and guided by Sheikha Fariha al-Jerrahi. She currently resides and offers the teachings and practices of her Sufi Path in Tustin, California. While these teachings and practices are deeply rooted in Islamic Sufism, she universalizes them on the shared core principles of human mystic experience. She leads Retreats, presents in Conferences, participates in Interfaith and Trans-traditional Councils, and Community Service Groups. She holds a BA in Education, and an MA in Science of Creative Intelligence. Ashki is from Turkey, married and has three children.

Shahid Athar, MD, FACP, FACE
is a Clinical Associate Professor and an Endocrinologist in private practice in Indianapolis.

Arthur F. Buehler, Ph.D.
is a Senior Lecturer at Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand specializing in Sufism and Contemplative Practice.

Nevit Ergin, MD
a surgeon who has practiced medicine since 1955, has been a student of Sufism and the poetry of Rumi for close to fifty years. His life's work has been the translation of all 44,000 verses of Rumi's writings: the Divan-i Kebir, a process that has unfolded over a 25-year period. Recently a limited edition replica was made from the original Divans located in the Konya Museum. The replica is exhibited by the Society for Understanding Mevlana, founded by Dr. Ergin and his friends in 1992, a non-profit organization dedicated to the continued study of Rumi and his works.

Mary Ann D. Fadae, Ph.D.
is a member of the Jerrahi Order of America, whose spiritual center is in Istanbul, Turkey. She has taught courses in the history of Western Civilization, Arabic language, and the religion of Islam at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI).

Sheikha Azima Lila Forest
is a teacher with the Sufi Ruhaniat International, and a Unitarian Universalist minister.

Sonia Leon Gilbert
has been a president of the M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship and Mosque for thirty-seven years. The wisdom and teachings of this great Sufi Sheik are gratefully reflected in Sonia's many speeches and written works, as well as enthusiastic engagements in interfaith dialogues. Topic: HEART'S WORK.

Nafisa Haji
is the author of the novel *The Writing On My Forehead* and is currently working on her second novel. She earned her doctorate in Educational Leadership from UCLA, focusing her research on caring, long-term relationships between teachers and students.

Kabir Helminski
is a Shaykh of the Mevlevi Order which traces back to Jalaluddin Rumi. His books on spirituality, Living Presence and The Knowing Heart, have been published in at least eight languages. He has translated the works of Rumi and others, and has toured as Shaykh with the Whirling Dervishes of Turkey bringing Sufi culture to more than 100,000 people. Kabir is also Co-Director, with his wife Camille, of The Threshold Society (Sufism.org), which seeks to apply the wisdom of the Sufi tradition to contemporary needs. He is a core faculty member of the Spiritual Paths Institute (spiritualpaths.net), and lives near Santa Cruz, California.

Arife Ellen Hammerle, Ph.D., MA, LMFT, JD
a student of the Uwaiysi School of Sufism, as guided by Sufi Teachers Dr. Nahid Angha and Shah Nazar Seyyed Dr. Ali. Kianfar, is a member of the International Association of Sufism, the Sufism Psychology Forum, and a Board member of the Institute for Sufi Studies.

Ibrahim Jaffe, MD
is the President Emeritus and the spiritual director of the University of Spiritual Healing and Sufism. Dr. Jaffe is the Muqqadam Murrabi Ruhi ar-Ra'is (head Muqqadam) of the Shadhiliyya Sufi Center in the West under Shaykh Muhammad al-Jamal ar-Rifa`i as- Shadhili from Jerusalem.

Pir Shabda Kahn
a direct disciple of the American Sufi Master, Murshid Samuel Lewis, has been practicing Sufism since 1969 and is the Pir (Spiritual Director) of the Sufi Ruhaniat International, the lineage tracing from Hazrat Inayat Khan and Murshid Samuel Lewis.

Tamam Kahn
is a senior teacher in The Sufi Ruhaniat International. Her book *Untold: A History of the Wives of Prophet Muhammad* has just been published. She is editor-in-chief of "The Sound Journal," an online journal serving the Sufi Ruhaniat Community. She is married to Pir Shabda Kahn.

David Katz, MD
born in Wisconsin and graduated in philosophy from Stanford University, is married to Anne Katz, who has also been a student of Sheikh Bawa Muhaiyaddeen since 1976. Dr. Katz is the president of the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship, California Branch, and practices as a family physician in Sacramento, California, guided by the healing teachings offered by Sheikh Bawa.

Shah Nazar Seyyed Ali Kianfar, Ph.D.
is the co-director, co-founder of the International Association of Sufism, and Editor-in-Chief of Sufism: An Inquiry. An internationally published author and lecturer, he was appointed to teach Sufism by his Sufi Master of the Uwaiysi Tariquat, Hazrat Moulana Shah Maghsoud. Dr. Kianfar has taught Sufism and Islamic philosophy throughout the world for over 30 years, with thousands of students around the globe. He represented the USA at the UNESCO Culture of Peace Conference in Uzbekistan and the IAS for a cooperative educational program with Al-Azhar University in Cairo. Dr. Kianfar's new books: *Seasons of the Soul* and *Fatema* (Farsi) have been well received and his Zikr has been published numerous times.

Emanuel L. Levin (Musa Muhaiyaddeen)
is a direct disciple of the Sufi mystic and teacher Bawa Muhaiyaddeen. He has traveled throughout Europe, Turkey and North America, speaking on the teachings of Bawa Muhaiyaddeen and Sufism. He is the author of *On the Road to Infinity*.

Safa Ali Michael Newman, JD
is President of the Board of Directors of the International Association of Sufism and Chairperson of the Association's Executive Committee of the Institute for Sufi Studies.

Sharon G. Mijares, Ph.D.
is a Licensed Psychologist, member of the Sufi Ruhaniat International, the International Association of Sufism's Sufi Women's Organization, and an ordained Sufi Minister of Universal Worship.

Alhaj Shah Sufi Syed Mainuddin Ahmed
the president of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, in Bangladesh, has built an orphanage, Madrasa, free clinic and an Islamic complex at Maizbhandar Darbar Sharif, Chittagong, Bangladesh.

Shahzada-e-Gausul Azam Shah Sufi Alhaj Syed Saifuddin Ahmed Al Hasni Wal Hussaini Maizbhandari
is the only son of Baba Mainuddin Ahmed Al-Hasani Wal-Hussain. He has participated in countless international seminars and symposiums.

Professor Arthur Kane Scott
teaches humanities/social cultural studies at Dominican University of California. His specialty is Islamic Studies, where he has taken the lead in bringing the truth of Islam both to the campus as well as to the greater Bay Area as lecturer/scholar through authoring an on-line course, History of Islam/Middle East, for University of California Berkeley Extension. He has established at Dominican the Islamic Institute for elementary/secondary school teachers, is a practicing Sufi and has written many articles on Sufism in Sufism: An Inquiry.

Bahman A.K. Shirazi, Ph.D
is a faculty member at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco and The Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (ITP) in Palo Alto, California. Bahman teaches in the areas of integral yoga and psychology, Sufi Psychology, and transpersonal psychology. His publications include book chapters and articles in the areas of integral psychology and Sufi psychology.

***
Music Performances by:

Taneen Sufi Music Ensemble
sings the love poetry of the great Sufi masters in English translation, making the profound message of unity accessible to all audiences. Since in 1996 these Sufi practioners have shared their meditation-inspired music locally and internationally, in such peace-building venues as the Nobel Peace Institute and Parliament of World’s Religions.

Radio Istanbul
is a Bay Area ensemble that provides live Turkish music played on traditional instruments. Established and directed by Haluk Kecelioglu, Radio Istanbul plays an exciting mix of acoustic music ranging from elegant classical Ottoman suites to lively dance pieces from various regions of Turkey. The ensemble features Haluk Kecelioglu on Ud and vocals, Ahmet Cagin on Kanun and vocals, Mary Farris on Ney and Clarinet and Faisal Zedan on percussion.

***
Psychology Panel
(Can be registered for separately):
Saturday, June 26, 3:00 - 5:00 pm
Embassy Suites Hotel, San Rafael, CA
The Dignity of Being Human
2 CEUs Available

Moderated by Amineh Amelia Pryor, Ph.D.
a psychotherapist at the Community Healing Centers, a non-profit psychotherapy practice with offices in San Francisco and Marin. Dr. Pryor is a student of Uwaiysi Sufism and an active member of the International Association of Sufism. She presents at local and international conferences and is the author of Psychology in Sufism and Sufi Grace.

Mary Toth Granick, M. Ed., LMFT
is a licensed psychotherapist in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she works with adults, couples, and adolescents and their families. She also has extensive experience and a background in school-based counseling services in various settings in the Bay Area. She is a student of Uwaiysi Sufism and a member of the International Association of Sufism. Ms. Toth Granick has contributed articles in the SPF Newsletter and the journal, Sufism: An Inquiry. She has also presented her work with Sufism and Psychology at various retreats and workshops in the Bay Area.

Michelle Ritterman, Ph.D.
pioneered the integration of hypnosis and family therapy, and has trained thousands of therapists in her approach to working with couple and families. A student of Milton Erickson, she originated the concept of the symptom as a trance state - shared and separate track trances - in family and couple interactions, and also the development of therapeutic counterinductions. See is a prolific author whose work includes the books Using Hypnosis in Family Therapy, Hope Under Siege, The Tao of a Woman, and a CD entitled Shared Couple's Trance. She can be contacted through her website: http://www.micheleritterman.com/

Robert H. Walters Ph.D.
is a Clinical Psychologist and has been in private practice in Menlo Park, CA. since 1990. In addition to working with individuals in psychotherapy he has been training and supervising interns at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology since 1995. He also does training for interns at Christian Counseling Center in Fremont CA. His primary professional and personal interest is in attempting to integrate psychological and spiritual dimensions of experience. To his surprise and delight, he continues to find some of the finest articulations of deep spiritual sensibilities embedded in contemporary psychoanalytic literature and some of the most useful prescriptions for psychological hardiness within inspired texts from a variety of spiritual traditions.

***
The Symposium is sponsored by the International Association of Sufism, headquartered in Novato. Tickets are $175 for all 3 days before June 15 or $200 at the door; Students and seniors, $150. Tickets for individual days are also available. All events are open to the public and wheelchair accessible. For information and tickets, call (415) 382-7834 or go to http://www.sufismsymposium.org/

THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SUFISM
14 Commercial Blvd. #101, Novato, CA 94949
(415) 382-7834 * http://www.ias.org/

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Feqiye Teyran

By Aise Karabat, *State to sponsor Kurdish literature festival in June* - Today's Zaman - Istanbul, Turkey
Monday, May 24, 2010

Ankara: The Ministry of Culture and the General Secretariat for European Union Affairs (ABGS) will sponsor a Kurdish literature festival, to be held in Bahçesaray, in Van province, in late June honoring the memory of the 17th century Kurdish Sufi poet Feqiye Teyran.

Turkey’s chief EU negotiator Egemen Bağış told Today’s Zaman that the fact that the state has come to the point of sponsoring a Kurdish literature festival is significant for the government’s Kurdish initiative.

Bağış participated in the first Feqiye Teyran festival, which was held last year. In his speech there, he noted that although this very important Kurdish poet had been deliberately ignored for many years, his work did not disappear. “This means we cannot put our heads into the sand and ignore the existence of some problems, as this does not mean that they will disappear,” he had said at the opening of the first festival last year.

“Feqiye Teyran” means “the teacher of the birds” in Kurdish.

Teyran was a Sufi poet at the beginning of the 17th century who lived in Bahçesaray. He is mentioned in the “ant drinking water” story by Yasar Kemal, who is invited to the festival this year alongside many other Turkish and foreign writers.

[Picture: Turkish Writer Yasar Kemal. Photo: Yasar Kemal's Website.]

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Lights On

By Jerome Taylor, *Salman Ahmad: Rock against extremism* - The Independent - London, UK
Monday, May 24, 2010

The 'Muslim Bono', is in the UK with a striking message: make music, not war

There aren't many rock stars out there who have sold 30 million albums but can still walk the streets of London in obscurity. But then Salman Ahmad is no ordinary musician. Chances are most people in the West won't have heard of his group Junoon. Yet across the South Asian subcontinent, Ahmad's band is legendary.

Over the past two decades Junoon have played to millions of adoring fans across Pakistan, India and Bangladesh in an area of the world where western music is often greeted with outright hostility among conservatives.

Nowhere is this more true than in Pakistan where Junoon was formed. As legions of Saudi-trained scholars took over Pakistan's madrasas, teaching their students how all forms of art other than the recitation of the Qur'an is haram [forbidden], Junoon's popularity has stood out as one of many examples of how the Pakistani love affair with art continues unabated.

Ahmad, the band's founder and guitarist, could have opted for the life of your average rock star, watching the royalties pile up. Instead he has become a vociferous critic of Muslim extremists who have little issue with assassinating Islamic scholars, let alone musicians.

The 46-year-old is in Britain to try to hammer home an important message as part of a tour to promote his new biography, Rock'n'Roll Jihad: A Muslim Rock star's Revolution. He wants Muslims and non-Muslims alike to stand up for the rights of artists in areas of the world where intolerant strands of religious dogma threaten to wipe away centuries of Islamic culture.

Among British Muslims the same arguments abound over what is permissible. One of the reasons rap is popular among a section of young Muslim artists, for instance, is because hip-hop can get around those interpretations of Islam that condemn singing.

But Ahmad wants to tell British Muslims that all forms of music are permitted as long as the message is pure. Last week he travelled to Oxford to speak to the university's union for Pakistani students. On graduation, many of them will eventually return to Pakistan and will have a sizeable say in the country's direction.

Ahmad is holding meetings with a group of influential Muslim bankers as well as touring some London mosques. He is also scheduled to play music at a mosque in Stratford which is run by Minhaj ul Qur'an, a prominent Pakistani Sufi organisation whose leader, Sheikh Tahir ul-Qadri, recently released a fatwa condemning all terrorism and suicide bombings.

"For the last 1,400 years there have been so many rich contributions towards culture from the Muslim community," said Ahmad who, with his ponytail, sunglasses and tunic looks like a Muslim version of Bono or Jimmy Page. "And yet I have always had to confront this minority view, from extremely conservative mullahs, who believe that music is haram."

In a world where the so-called "war on terror" is all too often fought with air strikes, the suggestion that art could somehow help turn the tide against militancy might seem whimsical. But people like Ahmad, himself a practising Muslim, and the Quilliam Foundation, a think tank made up of former Islamist extremists, believe that these "soft" approaches to countering violent Islamism play as vital a role in confronting intolerance.

"What extremists fear – and this is what arts have the power to do – is the opening up of people's minds," says Ahmad. "For people who want to control the social agenda, culture is a threat. When you look at Pakistan, 100 million of the 150 million people there are under the age of 18. The extremists know that and that's their target market. I remember once an imam told me ,'If thousands of kids started going to rock concerts, who would come to my khutbahs [sermons]?'"

For those who might think that Junoon is simply a western secular rock product foisted on Pakistan, think again. Their music is a blend of Led Zeppelin-esque rock, South Asian drum beats and Sufi poetry. The sex and drugs elements of rock'n'roll don't get a look in with Junoon's lyrics, which are closely aligned to the Qawwali devotional songs sung by mystic Sufis – songs that revolve around Allah's love for all things.

It was as a teen while living in New York that Ahmad first fell in love with rock'n'roll. After telling his parents that he wanted to become a rock star, the 18-year-old Ahmad was plucked out of high school and sent to study medicine back in Lahore. He arrived back in Pakistan in 1981 as the country's military dictator, General Zia ul-Haq, was overseeing its Islam- ification, turning the nation away from its tolerant Sufi roots and steering it towards a Saudi-inspired religious society of austerity, intolerance and militant zeal. It probably wasn't the best atmosphere in which start up a rock band but Ahmad and his university friends were determined.

"We organised a secret talent contest in the basement of a hotel," he said. "Anyone could come along."

Ahmad had been practising Eddie Van Halen's famously complex guitar solo "Eruption" and as he let rip on stage the screaming began. Youth members of Jamaat-e-Islami, the Islamic party which was initially a favourite of the Zia regime, had found out about the meeting and stormed into the room. As the women were covered up, one of the cadres went to work on Ahmad's guitar. "They completely Pete Townsended it," he said.

Ahmad went on to become Pakistan's most recognisable rock stars despite heavy resistance from militant clerics. "This extremist view decides, well if the West has it [music], we can't," Ahmad says. "They say that, because you wear jeans, or a ponytail, you must be westernised and therefore not a good Muslim. The way to counter that kind of debate is to to say, 'Hang on a minute; there were Muslims who had long hair 1,000 years ago, playing the oud [lute]. They were devout."

Since 11 September the band has been courted by the international community as some sort of interfaith flag bearers. They are more likely to rock diplomats at the UN Security Council than hordes of screaming fans in Delhi's Nehru Stadium, but that is something Ahmad is willing to countenance if it means he can show the world a different side to Islam.

"A terrorist is given centre stage on front page news every day," he says. "Those trying to do good in the Muslim world have a very limited voice."

Last month the band were asked to play a gig in New York's Times Square for Earthday. A week later, Faisal Shazhad, a 30-year-old Pakistani-American, is said to have parked an SUV laden with explosives in Times Square in a failed bombing which the Pakistani Taliban have since claimed. "The extremist doesn't even have successfully to detonate a bomb and he's an overnight rock star. Morons are being treated like heroes, which really pisses me off," says Ahmad.

What the world needs to do, he says, is be brave enough to confront extremism. "In a darkened room a piece of rope looks like a snake, doesn't it?" he asks. "But when you turn the lights on you see it's just a piece of rope. We need to turn the lights on."

Picture: Salman Ahmad: the Pakistani musician is campaigning against the dogma that threatens centuries of Islamic culture. Photo: Susannah Ireland.

Friday, May 28, 2010

"Honey!"

By John-Paul Flintoff, *A funny thing happened on the way to the mosque* - The Sunday Times - London, UK
Sunday, May 23, 2010

An increasing number of Britons are converting to Islam. Mosques are open to the public, so it is possible simply to wander in and try the religion for size?

London Central Mosque, near Lord’s cricket ground. I have passed it 1,000 times. Years ago, on the bus, I stared admiringly at the golden dome. More recently, pushing my daughter on the swings at nearby Regent's Park, I’ve noticed the gold needs touching up. But in the past few weeks I’ve been wondering whether I dared to step inside, as if it were a church, for a spot of peace and reflection.

Like many other people brought up in no particular religious tradition, I’ve dabbled - attended a wide variety of Christian churches, married into a substantially Jewish family and looked extensively into Buddhism. But I'd never tried Islam, although the Central Mosque is one of more than 1,500 in Britain, serving a fast-growing British Muslim community that already numbers some 2.4m people - rather more than the 1.7m Anglicans who attend church each week. And I am intrigued by the thought that there may be lessons I could learn. Like it or not, mosques are a part of our landscape that’s here to stay. And they're open to the public - so what stopped me before?

Despite thinking of myself as open-minded, I've come to believe that getting close to Islam can be dangerous. After all, extremists like Abu Hamza recruited through mosques such as Finsbury Park, and I've interviewed people who told me that went on at other mosques too. But one reformed extremist, Ed Husain, now runs a counter-extremist think-tank and strongly encouraged me to visit a mosque. Who knows, I might discover that the prayer mat and the pew have much in common.

And so, on a Friday in spring, I took myself to the Central Mosque for lunchtime prayers. A vast, largely male crowd gathered, like at football grounds. Inside the great hall, I sat on the carpet like everyone else, at the back. I admired the geometric design inside the domed roof and watched the men around me - poor Bengalis from nearby estates, prosperous Arabs up from Edgware Road, and assorted Kosovars and Bosnians. Here and there, small children rolled about quietly.

After half an hour of Arabic, the imam spoke in English on the need to apologise after doing wrong. He addressed us as “dear brothers and sisters” - somewhere unseen, women were listening to him too.

Then the call to prayer began, and people behind me pushed forward to fill gaps. A few, having secured a place, turned and beckoned me to join them. But I was only here to observe, so I smiled and stayed where I was - until an angry-looking man stepped out of line and beckoned more forcefully. I meekly followed - only to find myself on a mat facing Mecca, bending at the hips as if to inspect my shoes, then dropping to my knees to rest my nose on the mat, bottom in the air, holes in socks for all to see, muttering “Allahu akbar” (God is great).

It wasn’t the most spiritual moment in my life. When it finished, I got up and joined 8,000 other people in a mad rush to retrieve shoes.

The past 15 years have seen a phenomenal growth of Islam within Britain’s indigenous and African-Caribbean communities, according to Batool Al-Toma, who runs the Leicestershire-based New Muslims Project. Born Mary Geraghty, she’s a former Catholic who embraced Islam three decades ago. She wears a headscarf and a long floral coat modestly buttoned up to her neck, but retains a feisty, bustling quality not uncommon in middle-aged Irishwomen.
Hundreds of people have come to Al-Toma’s office to convert to Islam, which involves no more than reciting the shahada (a conviction that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is his prophet).

"People ask how many I’ve converted," she said. "They ask that all the time, as if I'm out there with my net." She told me she discourages would-be converts if she thinks that they - or their families and friends - are not ready. And that can take a very long time: her own children were born into Islam and have embraced it as adults but when she went to Ireland recently to visit family with her son, he was constantly rebuked for wearing a beard “to promote Islam”.

Sarah Joseph is the editor and CEO of a Muslim lifestyle magazine, emel. Like Al-Toma, she was brought up Catholic but converted 22 years ago after losing her faith. It was very painful.
A priest said, don’t worry, we all have doubts." Meanwhile, her brother married a Muslim and converted. Joseph looked into Islam and was surprised to find “intellectually satisfying answers".
Like Al-Toma, she knows it can be hard to keep the support of friends and family. “Some families can feel a degree of bereavement,” she says. “It’s as if your child has given up on the right path, the middle-class dream. People think, ‘Oh my God, what have they become?’”

Another convert, Yahya (formerly Jonathan) Birt - son of the former BBC director-general John Birt - agrees that embracing Islam can cause upset. “Converts can be labelled traitors or, more kindly, eccentrics.” So why bother? What can possibly be the attraction?

Birt is reluctant to talk about his own conversion, in 1989, because to people who are cynical about religion it can sound deluded or pretentious. It's a personal matter, he stresses. His own interest arose after meeting somebody who seemed to embody the religious life at its best: “It took me over three years to get past my own lack of interest in all things religious to ask him about his faith. I was presented with no argument but simply with holiness, with the possibilities of contentment, integrity and wholeness that the religious life offers. Saintliness is its own argument.”

Impressed, I wondered if it might be possible to get some taste of Islam - but without actually converting. To practise, if you like, some kind of Islam-lite - like dipping into Christianity by trying the Alpha course.

To begin, I spent weeks reading about Islam, and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him, as the books said). Jemima Khan, perhaps the most prominent convert of recent times, spent six or seven months reading Islamic scholars such as Gai Eaton, Alija Izetbegovic and Muhammad Asad. “What began as intellectual curiosity slowly ripened into a dawning realisation of the universal and eternal truth,” she said. I tried those authors, and others too.

But I didn’t read the Koran. People say it’s fundamentally untranslatable, and I don’t have time to learn Arabic.

On Google I found my local mosque, the Islamic Centre of Brent. Its website listed daily prayer times that were a couple of months out of date. Elsewhere, the site offered audio files for the whole Koran, and forms to download for child benefit, housing benefit, jobseeker’s allowance and visas for Pakistan.

After phoning ahead, I wandered over and met the manager. Yasir Alam was quietly spoken, with a mild Pakistani accent. When I mentioned the calendar on the website he looked pained: he’d just got back from his father’s funeral and hadn't updated the site. I regretted mentioning it.

Shoes off, we entered one of the empty halls. I asked Alam about prayer. He looked pained again, torn between the wish to refer my questions to a greater expert and a polite desire to help out. Tentatively he outlined the mechanics of prostration and offered the idea that prayer is about being thankful. What did that mean? He said that if I was a poor man with no shoes I could still thank God that I had feet, unlike (even) less fortunate people.

I asked if he had many visitors like me. He nodded. Perhaps Alam saw through the superficial matter of my ethnicity and social class, glimpsing the seeker within; but in half a dozen visits to the mosque in the weeks that followed, I would see few white people, and meet only one who spoke English as a first language. It seemed that the Islamic Centre of Brent has yet to be woven into the fabric of British life.

But some rituals are universal: “Would you like a cup of tea?” Alam asked.

In his office, a screen monitored numerous CCTV cameras. Many people believe they are not allowed to enter mosques, he said. He often sees them standing outside, hovering, then walking off. Sometimes, he goes out to explain that they are welcome to step in.

Alam took me downstairs and left me to watch lunchtime prayers, promising I would be left alone this time if I sat at the back. One man sat to the side, reciting the Koran, another lay asleep, snoring audibly. Then all at once people flooded in, muttered “Salaam aleikum” (peace be upon you) to nobody in particular and started prostrating anywhere. But after the call to prayer, with about 40 people in the room - most dark-skinned, none female - they shuffled forward to fill spaces on the prayer mat.

A young man with a long beard came to join me. A sweet-smelling Bosnian named Mo, he spoke imperfect English but managed to explain that, during prayer, worshippers look over one shoulder, then the next, to greet angels recording our good and bad deeds.

My heart sank. TJ Winter, a lecturer in theology at Cambridge and himself a convert, better known among Muslims as sheikh Abdal Hakim Murad, believes that Islam, once we have become familiar with it, is the most suitable faith for the British.

“Our doctrine could not be more straightforward," he says. “The most pure, exalted, uncompromising monotheism. A system of worship that requires no paraphernalia. Just the human creature and its Lord.” But Mo seemed to suggest there was more to it. I was
not sure that I believe in God. How could I believe I had an angel on each shoulder?

The point, Mo stressed, was to think always of judgment day. Alas, I didn’t believe in an afterlife, except in the sense that my body would one day be consumed by worms, so I would "become" a worm, and then be consumed by a bird, and so on.

Mo looked blank but recovered his poise by opening his Koran, and shortly afterwards actually offering to give it to me to keep.

I was overwhelmed: we had met only moments before. But he reduced my sense of gratitude a teeny bit by suggesting that I shower before reading this holy book.

I wasn’t fitting in as I’d hoped. The Muslims I met were friendly, but I felt detached, like a tourist. So one Saturday night I went back to Brent mosque. It was 10 in the evening, but Alam had particularly said this was the time to learn more about Islam.

I found a man brushing his teeth outside the prayer hall. He didn't look surprised to see a visitor at this hour, and took me to the kitchen, where a group stood drinking tea but said they were about to leave, and suggested I look for another group. So I walked round the building. Through a door, I heard voices. I knocked, and someone shouted: “This door is locked, brother.”

It was nice to be called brother. But not to be locked out and lost. In frustration, I climbed a fire escape and found an open door. Inside, shoes lay scattered everywhere - a promising sign. Pushing through, I came to some stairs and another door. I knocked, coughed, shouted hello - but no reply. I pushed through, only to find myself in… somebody’s bedroom. I dashed down the stairs, put my shoes on as fast as I could, and returned to the bottom of the fire escape.

I went back to the group in the kitchen, who gave me spiced tea and HobNobs, then led me to find the people I was looking for in the ladies’ prayer hall - not somewhere I’d dared to look.

Twelve men sat in a semicircle chanting Arabic hypnotically. They seemed delighted to see me.
The group was ethnically mixed, with members whose origins appeared to lie in Africa, the Indian subcontinent and southeastern Europe. Some wore clothes from those parts, others could have been dressed at Gap. In age they ranged from early twenties to late fifties. I was placed next to a young man I assumed to be Arab: he had dark hair, a wispy black beard and Islamic hat, and prefaced every utterance with “Alhamdullilah” (praise be to God). But in fact he was English and an ex-Catholic.

Joseph had told me that converts to Islam, particularly if they are cut off by friends and family, find themselves pressured by the established Muslim community to conform to standards that are not Islamic but cultural. Jemima Khan experienced something like this, adopting traditional Pakistani clothing after marrying Imran Khan. “I over-conformed in my eagerness to be accepted,” she said. I wondered if the same applied to my neighbour.

Over the next hour or so I joined the group’s meditative practice, using a bilingual text to chant the 99 most beautiful names of Allah, then the 201 names of the Prophet, and praise each one to the utmost - as much as there are stars in the sky and drops of rain. Nobody complained about me, a non-Muslim, doing this. By comparison, I remember being rebuked, gently, by my grandfather after taking communion though I’d not been baptised or confirmed. And that was in the easygoing Church of England.

While somebody lit incense, I confessed to my neighbour that I’d inadvertently joined the prayers at Regent's Park. He didn’t quite manage to suppress a broad grin, but recovered swiftly by saying “Alhamdulillah”. Allah would know if I’d done it with a good intention, he said.
The chanting ended. I was given fruit juice, dates and baklava, and introduced to several members of the group, who extended the eastern courtesy of touching their hearts as they shook my hand. I may have been feeling light-headed, but the room seemed to be charged with celebration and a strong sense of brotherhood - as if we were a sports team that had just won an important fixture.

When it came time to leave, one of my brothers called out: “Have a good evening!”
It was nearly one o'clock in the morning.

At home, I looked up the group I’d met and discovered that they were an order of Sufis. According to my books, Sufis aspire to detachment, patience and gratitude, using techniques that include chanting and prayer but also walking on hot coals, wearing a hair shirt, lying on a bed of nails and spinning on the spot for hours on end. This might be a promising area for somebody dabbling in Islam.

I found a group in the whirling dervish tradition and emailed a couple who host meetings at their home. A few days later I met Amina Jamil and her husband, Hilal, at a cafe, where they explained more. They were dressed in western clothes - no headscarf on Amina - but possessed what I can only describe as a kind of nobility, as if from another time.

Hilal explained that their Sufi sessions start with silent mantras. These included “There is no God but God,” to be repeated 100 times. Then "Allah" 300 times. "Then we ask for our faults to be forgiven, and we forgive others," he said. "We end with ‘Hu’, which is the divine pronoun."

"The work of Sufism is to embrace and discover the self," said Amina.

It gradually dawned on me that there was to be no whirling. After the mantras, the group reads a portion of poetry by Rumi, the 13th-century Persian mystic, theologian and founder of the dervishes. Amina handed me a copy of Rumi’s poetry, slightly worn at the corners. She wanted me to have it.

It was the second time I’d been offered a book that somebody loved. I mentioned Mo, the Bosnian, and my concerns about reading the Koran in translation. Hilal agreed that some translations were better than others. “But more important than the language is what you bring to the text. Do you have an open heart? If you are cynical, that is what you will find.”

Days later, at their smart mansion block, Hilal introduced me to six members of the group - mostly women. I didn't catch everybody's names, but they included an economist, two doctors and a psychiatrist. Some were born to Islam, but one was a former Catholic (another!). We sat in a circle on chairs and sofas. The women put scarves on their heads and we began the silent mantras.

After the poetry reading, the chanting began. I noticed that my own voice was deeper than others, but gradually lost my thoughts to the harmony. Then Hilal laid out prayer mats. I took my place beside the women. Prostrating mechanically was easy. But praising a God I didn't necessarily believe in? I kept in mind something Rumi wrote. “Stop trying to be the sun and become a speck,” I told myself. “Don’t pretend to be a candle, be a moth."

The following Saturday I went back to Brent mosque to find out more about the group I’d met briefly in the kitchen - Sufis from yet another order, whose worship relies heavily on music.
I was introduced to a Sudanese man wearing what the ignorant might describe as a long white dress, and a fur hat. This was the sheikh, or teacher. He was obviously held in great esteem because people stooped to kiss his hand. As we talked, another man started to sing ecstatically, while others tapped out an irresistible rhythm on the kitchen’s stainless-steel counter. Scarcely able to stop myself swaying to this hypnotic music, I asked the sheikh what it was about.

They’re praising Allah, he said. All Sufi groups do this. “You can go on British Airways and I can go on Pakistan Airways, but we are all going to the same place. Daily life makes you blind. This opens your eyes.” I told him I was trying to get a taste of Islam. He approved, said the only way to do that was to try it, and told me a story about the Prophet holding a jar and asking his followers what it contained. One guessed it was honey, as did a second. But a third actually dipped a finger in and tasted it: "Honey!"

I decided to try fasting, which isn’t only done at Ramadan: one of my Sufi brothers had told me he won't touch food or drink during daylight on Mondays and Thursdays - not even water.
I rose early. I still hadn’t mastered the routine for prayer but did my best, remembering what Al-Toma had told me about prayer: "It's not what other people think. It's between you and God."

I ate a bowl of yoghurt, a banana and a slice of toast - and glugged a litre of warm water. Went back to bed, rose again at seven to get my daughter ready for school, dropped her off, and returned for an hour of desultory typing.
But I wasn't thinking straight, and at exactly 9.42am I decided I would have to break the fast for a coffee. Managing somehow to restrain myself, I crept back to bed at 9.58 to doze for 90 minutes, and rose, for the third time that day, only marginally refreshed.

After lunchtime prayers, I needed help. My wife suggested I give up. But that wouldn’t do. I emailed Hilal to say I couldn't imagine how he copes doing this for a month. He sent back a poem on fasting by Rumi, and encouragement. "It's tough when you're doing it for the first time, and only for one day." (Apparently, it gets easier after four or five days.)

Shortly after, something magical happened. I stopped feeling hungry, tired and frustrated and became instead terrifically excited at the prospect of my first bite of food, my first sip of water. Just as, in the mosque, by the physical act of prayer I'd achieved an overpowering sense of humility, so by fasting I'd struggled for self-control and worked up a powerful feeling of gratitude.

It was true what the sheikh said: only by actually trying it would Islam make sense. Of course, dipping my toes in was never going to be the same as converting properly.

One convert who later gave up on Islam told me he’d been put off after being pressured, at his local mosque, to change his name and adopt Pakistani clothes. “There’s nothing un-Islamic about my name,” he said. “And as for my clothes, Islam is supposed to be a universal religion.”

He stopped going to mosque and, lacking any wider Muslim support network, gradually lost faith. He felt scared even to speak of this, he said, because the penalty for giving up on Islam, in some countries, is death. Others who converted and then quit Islam told me they should really have looked into it more beforehand. "I truly believed in Islam at the time," said one, "but the more I learnt, the more I disagreed with." Specifically, he felt uncomfortable about the different treatment of men and women in Islam.

I, too, was troubled by a number of questions. Will the Koran always seem alien to people who don't speak Arabic? At her north London offices, Sarah Joseph reassured me by stating that she'd not found it necessary to master Arabic (nor to change her name) though she takes care to research the meaning of key passages (and, for the record, she chooses to wear a headscarf). Trumping even the generosity of Mo and Amina, Joseph gave me a monumentally beautiful copy of the Koran, translated with commentary - and without suggesting that I wash before reading it.

Will mosques ever become, like some churches, places that ordinary Britons wander into for spiritual sustenance and quiet time?

I doubt it: mosques aren’t sacred spaces in quite the same way - what matters, so I’m told, is for Muslims to pray together, all pointing towards Mecca - and that could just as easily happen elsewhere. What's more, there’s the gender divide: if I brought my wife to the mosque we’d be separated - not something we’re used to, unless to change at swimming pools. But is separation so bad? After living in Pakistan for years, Khan concluded that "Islam is not a religion which subjugates women while elevating men". Who am I to argue?

I’ve found the practice of Islam surprisingly familiar - energising as a yoga class, meditative as Zen, worshipful as the most happy-clappy Anglicans. Did I ever feel uncomfortable? A bit, when I was propelled forward to join the prayers at Regent’s Park, and later when I travelled with Al-Toma to Iranian-owned TV studios in west London for a discussion show on converts, only to be left in the lobby because the producers considered me a security risk.

On my last visit to Brent mosque, I bumped into Mo, the Bosnian. He was delighted to see me, but wanted to know if my frequent reappearances meant I had accepted Islam. Unsure what to reply, I said I was still trying it out.

This seemed to satisfy him. I left the Islamic centre happy to have been accepted. But as I stood outside, my warm feelings were dashed. A neighbour - a white man in his forties - opened his window and shouted, hoping I would do him a favour and burn the mosque down.

Picture: John-Paul Flintoff sticks his head out during prayer at his local mosque in Brent. Photo: The Sunday Times

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Shrine Ban

By Abdul Latif Sahak, *Women Angry Over Shrine Ban* - IWPR Institute for War & Peace Reporting - London, UK
Tuesday, May 25, 2010/ARR Issue 362

Balkh women say ban on popular women-only day at holy site is latest in series of repressive measures.

Standing outside the gates of the imposing blue-tiled Hazrat-e Ali shrine, local resident Wazma is furious. A policeman has barred her way into the site - believed to be the burial place of the prophet Mohammad’s son-in-law Ali - citing a new municipal ban on visiting the shrine on Wednesdays, previously a women-only day.

“When the Taleban took any actions against women, the entire world would raise its voice, saying women’s rights have been violated,” she shouted. “But when [Balkh governor] Ata Mohammad Nur violates women rights, the entire world is silent.”

The last time she had been prevented from entering the shrine in the centre of Mazar-e-Sharif, she said, was 12 years ago when the Taleban-era governor, Abdol Manan Niazai, barred both men and women from visiting.

Women in the northern province have been angered by the ruling ending the traditional women-only Wednesdays, arguing that it is the latest in a series of repressive measures and one motivated by the prospect of commercial gain.

Although visiting shrines is sometimes frowned upon as an un-Islamic practice, it has been a traditional part of Afghan culture for many centuries and women embrace the rare opportunity to leave their homes and socialise.

In the past, thousands of women from across the province flocked to the mosque complex every Wednesday, considered a particularly auspicious day for women to visit holy places.

Another recent move has included installing policemen at the shrine who prevent women from walking in circles around the holy site. The only place such circling is allowed to take place, the ruling says, is during the pilgrimage to Mecca.

Critics say Ata Mohammad has violated the article of the constitution which states that “citizens of Afghanistan, including men and women, shall have equal rights and responsibilities before the law”.

Maghfarat Samimi, head of the Independent Human Rights Commission office in the northern provinces, said, “If the religious council and the local government authorities say women visiting the tomb of Ali is an un-Islamic act, then why did they….hoist the flag of the shrine at Nowruz (new year). Both of these actions are prohibited in Islam.

“Men are as Muslim as women. If [visiting a shrine] is unlawful for women, why do men practice it? I think this [municipal] order is a Talebanic act.”

On the recommendation of the Balkh religious council, Ata Mohammad had previously forbidden male singers from performing at wedding parties and banned women from going to male-owned tailor’s shops.

Critics accuse Ata Mohammad and Fariba Majid, the director of women’s affairs in Balkh province, of banning women from the shrine so that they will be forced to visit recreational parks outside the city.

One dedicated park for women, Bagh-i-Zanana, has been built by the ministry of women’s affairs and funded by the government and the Swedish and German Provincial Reconstruction Teams, PRT. The women’s affairs provincial department collects the rents of eight shops and a restaurant which operate in the park.

Mazar-e-Sharif resident Fariba said that officials would benefit from the ban, as women would be forced to spend their money in both the women’s park and another recreational centre, the Nur park in the Khaled Bin Walid area of the city.

“After this order has been issued, many women will visit those parks and the [municipality] will make a lot of money,” she said.

Munir Ahmad Farhad, spokesman for the Balkh governor, denied the accusations, “This order was suggested to the governor’s office by the religious scholars’ council and the provincial council and the decision was made after comprehensive debate.”

Farhad said that the numbers of women gathering every Wednesday were creating traffic problems and disturbing prayers at the shrine. He stressed that the governor had no personal interests in issuing the order.

Director of women affairs Majid said that the ban had been suggested jointly by her department and the religious scholars’ council.

Women visiting the shrine both disrupted traffic in the city and disturbed the male population, she said, adding, “Women’s rights have not been harmed with this order. They are still free to go to recreational areas.”

But local resident Shekiba, standing near the gate of the shrine, said that it was men who harassed women in the shrine, “The director of women affairs has tried to hide the sun with two fingers in order to make the governor happy. The truth is that women’s rights have been violated and it is women who are bothered by men using bad language.”

Mawlawi Abdorrahman, a deputy of the scholars’ council of Balkh province, said that the women’s Wednesday visits were a sin in Islam.

Not only did these visits give foreigners the opportunity to take photographs of Afghan women and publish them abroad, he said, but the women themselves disgraced the holy site by socialising rather than praying. That was why the scholars’ council discussed the issue with the governor of Balkh and he accepted it. “The governor always considers our demands,” he said.

Outside the shrine, Mazar-e-Sharif resident Fatima, who said she had studied religious education in Iran, argued that the ban itself was un-Islamic. “Islam is a religion which has given equal rights of worshipping to men and women and for this reason millions of women go on the haj [pilgrimage to Mecca] every year,” she said.

“What kind of an Islamic order is it that men are allowed but women are not allowed to go to a shrine?”

Freshta, a local high school student, said the Wednesday visits created a rare opportunity for women to meet and enjoy themselves. “I will never be able to meet my friends after this again, because girls cannot go to each other’s houses freely like men,” she said.

Pedlars around the shrine are also upset about the order.

Nafas Gol sat with a basket of 100 home-made bolanis, Afghan pancakes filled with potato and onion. With four daughters and a small son at home, she said this was her only source of income.

“My bolanis would sell better on Wednesdays than on other days because many women would come to the shrine. I made more in that one day than in the rest of the week. I do not know what to do now,” she said.

Abdul Latif Sahak is an IWPR-trained reporter in Balkh province.

[Picture: Detail of the Decoration of the Shrine. Photo: Wiki]

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Full Of Love

By Irfan Al-Alawi, *Another Saint of the Ba'Alawi family, the Jewel of Malaysia, leaves us* - Center for Islamic Pluralism - Washington, DC, USA
Saturday, May 15, 2010

Habib Ali bin Jaafar al-Aydrus of Batu Pahat, Johor

"From amongst the multitude, God graciously appoints some selected people as His friends to preach His commandments for the benefit of mankind. Their one greatest qualification is that they renounce the wealth and pleasures of the world and dedicate their lives to the love, devotion and service of God and humanity. When others feel the pinch of sorrows and pain, they don't. When the world would have no such 'awliyya' then the Day of Qayamat would dawn upon it."
– Syed Ali bin Usman Al Hajveri

As another of the awliyya passes away, only 40 days have elapsed since Al-Habib 'Abd al-Qadir al-Saqqaf (Allah be pleased with them) returned to his Lord, and the world is left in further darkness.

The famous Wadi Hasan Mosque in Batu Pahat, Johor Dar al-Ta'zim, Malaysia, where Habib Ali al-Aydrus (Allah be pleased with him) was the Imam, cries for him today.

He was a saint of great stature and was one of the last of his generation, and possibly the last in Malaysia .

Habib Ali al-Aydrus passed away on Thursday 29th Jamadi Al Awwal 1431 [13th May 2010] at 5:10pm at his house, aged 97.

Originally from Yemen, he settled himself in this fairly remote part of the state of Johor, but that did not stop people flocking to him from around the world.

Habib Ali was well-known among the great Sufi masters of the Far East and the Arab world. Regular visitors such as my Sheikhs, the renowned scholar of Mecca, Sayyid Muhammad bin Alawi al-Maliki, Habib Zain ibn Sumeit, Habib Hasan bin Abdullah As Syathiri, Habib 'Abd al-Qadir al-Saqqaf and various other Habaib had benefited from this exemplar among the awliyya of Allah.

He had a great maqam (rank) and he certainly is not only a jewel in the crown of Batu Pahat, but of a much bigger wilayat (area). We can only speculate on his role in the unseen realm.

Habib Ali was a very virtuous man whose prayers were never rejected by Allah. Even during his old age, he would spend all his time welcoming guests, day and night, into his humble house. He would assign a week to himself, to spend in ibadat (prayers), and leave the following week to receive guests.

He preferred for people not to look at him and despite having poor vision could tell if anyone was secretly watching him. The room that he used to sleep in was not comfortable but he did not seem to care about comfort.

Habib Ali would attend to people's requests for healing, but because of old age stopped doing so four years ago. People would be asked to write down their needs on a piece of paper which was to be pasted face down on water bottles. There were times when Habib Ali would call Umi Khatijah, his daughter, to help him read some illegible handwriting, but he covered up the paper with his hands and only revealed the few words that he could not read. Habib Ali would remind Umi that 'people trusted me with their personal problems, not you. This is amanah (trust) for me to keep.'

Habib Ali used to recite Yaseen and al-Mulk after Fajr and Maghrib prayers and al-Waqi'ah after Asar. But when he became older, he did not recite the Qur'an as much due to poor vision and memory, yet he would continually perform his Awarad and Wird (Prophetic invocations) day and night, as he did not sleep much.

When Habib Ali was 36 years old, his wife, Sharifah Alawiyah passed away. When people asked him to remarry, he said, 'even before my wife died I had already made a pledge that I would not marry again, so I wish to keep to my words.'

Habib Ali's father, Al Habib Ja'far al-Aydrus, was one of the great and noble men acknowledged by Allah, famous all over the world, and named as one of the connoisseurs in Siddiqiyyatil Qubra.

Habib Ali was very humble and always kept his head bent down with politeness; he was a man with a gentle voice and full of love. The light on his face was like a dazzling diamond in the darkness of the night. Indeed, a friend of Allah is one who is humble and always loves to serve the poor, just like the Prophet (Sallallahu alaihi wa Sallam). He was a mercy to all who knew him and all who may not be aware of his presence.

May Allah bless Habib Ali's soul.

Al-Fatih'a.

"Great is that bewildered youth whose Lord has extinguished his name, and raised him up,
Time passes and he knows not its reckoning as he is made to quaff the wine."
Irfan Al Alawi
Servant of The Seekers of Sacred Knowledge

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Cherry Trees Blossoming

By Nicholas Birch, *Turkish Theological Schools Flourishing as Restrictions Relax on Religious Expression* - EurasiaNet - NY, USA
Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Skull-caps on their heads, five students aged between 18 and 40 hunch over a text in Arabic in the southeastern Turkish town Norşin. In front of them, legs folded like a yogi, a copy of the same leather-bound book open on a low wooden lectern, an elderly teacher declaims in sing-song Kurdish.

Strictly speaking, this gathering is forbidden under Turkish law. But since the Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002, restrictions on religious expression have relaxed slightly. This easing has opened the way for a minor local renaissance in Turkey of one of the Muslim world's oldest institutions -- the medrese, or theological school.

For half a century after 1880, the village of Norşin was arguably the most important centre of religious learning in Kurdish areas of what is now Turkey and Iraq. Students called it the Al-Azhar of the East, after Cairo's famous university, and came from hundreds of miles away to attend.But the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923 dealt Norşin a double blow. First, medrese were closed in the name of unified, state-run education. Then, in 1925, unnerved by a major Kurdish revolt led by the leader of a religious brotherhood, Turkey's new leaders clamped down on Sufi lodges too.

A member of the same, influential Nakshibendi brotherhood as the rebel leader, Norsin's sheikh had nothing to do with the rebellion. It didn't stop him being sent into internal exile, along with his family. By the late 1970s, after decades spent in a semi-clandestine existence, Norsin's medrese had closed its doors.

Three decades on, the village has three medrese capable of educating 60 students at any one time. Construction on a fourth is nearing completion, as Norşin moves to take advantage of a re-awakening of interest that has seen theological schools across the region become more active.

"Radical Islam collapsed because it was a product of the Cold War," said Mufit Yuksel, a prominent sociologist of Islam who studied at Norşin. "Today there is a return to the traditional Islam symbolized by Norşin. The whole Islamic world has understood that religion is a tradition, not an ideology.

"While Norsin's renaissance dates back to the late 1980s, the AKP, led by a politician, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, seems more aware than earlier governments of its potential symbolic power, both for the religious-minded and for Kurds. Erdogan in his youth was close to an Istanbul branch of the Nakshibendi.

Last August, as the government launched a concerted effort to end a 25-year Kurdish rebellion, President Abdullah Gul traveled to the town, which is still officially known as Güroymak. But during the visit Gul called it by its Kurdish (or, as at least one etymologist mischievously suggested, Armenian) name of Norşin. It marked the first time since the Turkification of place names began in the 1930s that a senior official had publicly preferred a non-Turkish name. Many observers interpreted the move as being part of a policy aimed at undermining former Marxist Kurdish rebels by emphasizing Turkish-Kurdish Islamic brotherhood.

As Gul spoke, Turkish workmen paid for by Ankara, continued restoration work on the tomb of the founder of the Turkish branch of the Nakshibendi sect in the Syrian capital of Damascus.

"Sayyid Qutb is losing ground to... Mevlana," says Kurdish Islamist intellectual Serdar Bulent Yilmaz, referring to the Egyptian-born founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, a 20th century political Islamist movement, and the 13th century Sufi mystic and poet who died in the Turkish city of Konya. "Islam is supposed to go beyond the national, but Turkey's Muslims are rediscovering local symbols and local identity."

In Norsin itself, members of the family that has provided sheikhs for the local Sufi brotherhood for over 150 years take a harder-nosed view of their village's sudden return to prominence, as well as the rejuvenation of its medrese.

In the past, said Baha Mutlu, nephew of the current family head, Norşin used to boast of educating future religious teachers "knowledgeable in the twelve sciences," a term used to describe everything from natural philosophy through logic to shar’ia, or religious law. Today, few students get beyond learning Arabic and a good grounding in the Koran."

The Republican period brought great trauma to the functioning of medrese," Mutlu explains. "With the risk of a military police raid at any moment, you have to pare the syllabus down, cut it down to the bare minimum.”

While older Kurds still remain attached to the religion of their forefathers, the world view of younger generations has been affected both by obligatory secular education and the charisma of gun-toting Marxists in the mountains. In his early 50s now, Mutlu as a child went to the village primary school in the morning and the medrese in the afternoon. He can read Ottoman, an Arabic- and Farsi-tinged form of Turkish that is written in Arabic script as easily as he can read modern Turkish.

His nephew Ruknettin Mutlu, who studied public administration at university and now teaches democracy and human rights at the high school just down the hill from Norşin, is much more at home in modern Turkish. "Our uncle is not a sheikh in the traditional sense of the word," says Ruknettin's older brother Omer Mutlu, referring to the need for new Nakshibendi sheikhs to receive authorization from their superiors before beginning to practice. "Norşin is an institution and he took up leadership of it to tide things over. If he had not, it would have disappeared for ever."

Sitting outside Norşin's original medrese building, a simple white turban - or pushi - on his head, Sheikh Nurettin has no cause for complaint. He gestures behind him at cherry trees blossoming early after an unusually mild winter. "This past winter has been so beautiful that we have forgotten the bitter winters of the past," he says.

Five more students filed past him on their way to Arabic lessons with the elderly professor, cross-legged behind his lectern.

They could get a similar education at one of Turkey's official religious schools. But Turkey's official religious schools don't teach Kurdish. Nor, unlike Norşin, have they produced arguably the most important Islamic thinker in 20th century Turkish history, Said-i Nursi, rebellious Kurd in his youth, Koran exegete in his prime, revered by millions as a near-saint after his death.

"Everybody who comes here dreams of being the new Said," says Sheikh Nurettin.

EurasiaNet Editor's note: Nicolas Birch specializes in Turkey, Iran and the Middle East.

[Picture: Said Nurşi. Photo: Wiki.]

Monday, May 24, 2010

The Potential To Act

By Dr. Jonathan N. C. Hill, *Sufism in Northern Nigeria: A Force for Counter-Radicalization?* - Strategic Studies Institute - Carlisle, PA, USA
Monday, May 17, 2010

Sufism in Northern Nigeria: A Force for Counter-Radicalization

Added May 17, 2010
Type: Monograph
68 Pages
Download it Now
Cost: Free

Brief Synopsis

In light of the ongoing threats issued by al-Qaeda (AQ) against the United States and its allies, the need to prevent the radicalization of young Muslim men and women remains as pressing as ever, and perhaps nowhere is this task more urgent than in the countries of West Africa.

The global expanse of the ongoing war on terror places these territories in the frontline. With large Muslim populations that have hitherto remained mostly impervious to the advances of Islamism, the challenge now confronting the Nigerian government and the international community is ensuring that this remains the case. But in recent months, Islamist groups have been highly active in the region.

The aim of this monograph is to assess the potential of Nigeria’s Sufi Brotherhoods to act, both individually and collectively, as a force for counter-radicalization, to prevent young people from joining Islamist groups.

About the Author

Dr. Jonathan N. C. Hill is a lecturer in the Defence Studies Department at King’s College, London, United Kingdom, based at the Joint Services Command and Staff College. He has provided academic support to both the British Peace Support Team (BPST) in South Africa and the British Defence Advisory Team (BDAT) in Nigeria.

Dr. Hill has published widely on issues of African security. His most recent book, Identity in Algerian Politics: The Legacy of Colonial Rule, was released by Lynne Rienner Publishers in June 2009. He is currently working on a new book, a clutch of articles on Algeria and Nigeria.

Dr. Hill holds a Ph.D. in postcolonial politics from the University of Wales, Aberystywth, United Kingdom.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Positive Roles

By Staff Reporter, *Oxford hosts Sheikh Zayed Book Award annual lecture* - Middle East Online - London, UK
Saturday, May 15, 2010

Award-winning authors Ammar Ali Hasan and Qais Sedki give talks at Oxford University

Oxford, England: The Middle East Centre at Oxford University hosted Wednesday two lectures organized jointly with the UAE's Sheikh Zayed Book Award, presented by Egyptian Dr. Ammar Ali Hassan and Emirati Qais Sedki.

Hassan had won the Award's "Best Contribution to the Development of Nations" 2010 prize for his book "The Political Establishment of Sufism in Egypt", while Sedki was awarded the top prize for "Children's Literature" for his manga (graphic novel) "Gold Ring".

The event was moderated by Dr. Eugene Rogan, Director of the Middle East Centre, who underscored the important role played by the Award through the last four sessions and hailed the additions given by the prize-winning books to various fields of knowledge.

Hassan's talk focused on how the research of his book was compiled and the various ways it was met following publication. The Award had praised the book as "a remarkable addition" to Muslim Sufism studies.

The author shed light on some of the positive roles played by Sufism in Egyptian civil society since the second century of the Islamic calendar and up to today.

Meanwhile, Emirati author Sedki described the process of writing and publishing his original children's book, whose Arabic text was illustrated with Japanese drawings.

Sedki also discussed possible ways of prompting children's books in the Middle East, a task he stressed relies on many factors that are beyond the control of good authors.

But Sedki also stressed the need for authors and publisher to make books more entertaining for children and easier to read.

The event is the second lecture of such cooperation between the Award and Oxford University.
Rashed Saleh Al-Oraimi, General Secretary of the Award, praised the welcome and support received at Oxford University.

The event was attended by Mohhamed Al Attaiba, the Charge D'Affaires at the UAE Embassy to London, and other figures, publishers and members of the press.

The Award had previously organised similar events in Cairo, Kuwait, Beirut, New York, Los Angeles, Frankfurt amongst other cities.

Picture: (L-R): Eugene Rogan, Qais Sedki and Ammar Ali Hassan. Photo: MEO

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Over The Land

By Yoginder Sikand, *Muslim-Hindu Relations in Jammu Province – Part 3* - TwoCirles.net - Cambridge, MA, USA
Friday, May 14, 2010

"T" is an Islamic scholar belonging to the Barelvi maslak and is the imam of a mosque near Jammu.

I first met him in his simple, sparsely furnished room adjacent to the mosque, where he was surrounded by a group of Muslim peasants.

‘Killing an innocent Hindu just because he isn’t a Muslim is certainly not a jihad’, he tells me in response to my query about what he feels about the ongoing violence in Kashmir.

He explains that in a legitimate Islamic jihad non-combatant non-Muslims must not be harmed. Rather, he says, they must be protected. Yet, he laments, many of those who claim to be waging a jihad in Kashmir do not abide by this basic Islamic principle. He recounts the case of a fellow Barelvi maulana who made this point at a public meeting and was later threatened with death by activists from the dreaded Lashkar-i Tayyeba.

T is loathe to discuss politics. ‘I am a religious man’, he says, but he does insist that violence is not the way to solve the Kashmir issue. Rather than directly discuss Kashmiri politics, he prefers to dwell on what he believes is the correct Islamic notion of jihad. He argues that physical violence for the defence of Islam, when Islam or its adherents are under threat, is legitimate, but war for worldly advancement, for land or for power, is not. He tells me that the conflict in Kashmir is simply over the land—both India and Pakistan want to grab it, and they are not really concerned about the people as such—and hence it is not a real jihad.

He does not hesitate to condemn the excesses of both the Indian armed forces and certain Pakistan-based militant groups. He recounts cases of killings of innocents by both, describing their actions as unambiguously ‘anti-Islamic’. He fears that such violence might exacerbate in the future, with rival Islamic groups, representing different sectarian formations, fighting each other. ‘The gun culture has become so deeply ingrained that, who knows, Kashmir might go the Pakistan or Afghanistan way, with Shi‘as and Sunnis and Wahhabis training their guns on each other’.

As a traditional Islamic scholar, T’s interaction with the local Hindus is somewhat limited. Yet, he insists on the need for harmonious relations with the Hindus, and laments that in the course of the ongoing violence in Kashmir, Hindu-Muslim relations have drastically deteriorated. Yet, he believes that ‘ordinary’ Hindus and Muslims simply want to live in peace and carry on with their lives. He tells me about his experiences of living in a largely Hindu town, where there are few Muslims. In the years that he has lived not once was he targeted by the local Hindus or made to feel unsafe. ‘Given what has been happening in Kashmir’, he says, ‘they might have been expected to hate me, to create trouble for me, but that wasn’t the case. In fact, they treat me with respect’.

* * *

H is a Muslim college student in Jammu. His family are, as he puts it, ‘staunch Barelvis’, and he counts himself as an ardent Barelvi as well. He has not had a formal Islamic education, but through books and personal meetings with scholars associated with a particular Barelvi organization he has received a fairly good knowledge of his faith.

We talk about this Barelvi organization, and he tells me about how, in its own way, it is trying to promote peace in Kashmir. The organization has arranged numerous public meetings in different parts of Jammu and Kashmir, where Barelvi ‘ulama, including many from other parts of India, deliver lectures on various aspects of the Prophet’s life and teachings. The focus of these lectures is often on social issues, particularly issues of contemporary concern. H names a number of such issues, from female infanticide and dowry to inter-communal amity and the need for peace. ‘We cannot directly speak out the militants or they will kill us’, he says. ‘So we hold out the model of the Prophet as a way to counter their propaganda’.

H insists that Islam, as he sees it, and peace between the different communities, are indivisible. When the Prophet was born, his mother, Amina, saw angels planting white flags, symbolising peace, he tells me. Hence, Muslims must struggle for peace and against the misuse of religion to promote violence against innocent people. One of the meanings of ‘Islam’ in Arabic is peace, he notes, but adds that this does not mean a passive acceptance of things as they are, but, rather, also struggling, through morally justifiable means, for an end to all forms of oppression. This includes working for the rights of non-Muslims as well. To illustrate the point he tells me the story of a property dispute between a Muslim and a non-Muslim. They appeared before the Prophet, who decided in favour of the latter, although the Muslim had expected that he would rule in his favour simply because he was a Muslim. ‘The Prophet stressed the rights of one’s neighbours, and these include non-Muslims, and said that he who gives unnecessary sorrow to his neighbour would go to hell’, H says gravely.

H stresses the importance of personal behaviour and morality, arguing that calls for jihad and an Islamic state are meaningless if their advocates do not practise genuine spirituality themselves. ‘Your behaviour with others should be such that people think that it is because of Islam that you are good, not, as now, that you are bad because of Islam’, he says. He critiques certain radical Islamist groups in Kashmir, whom he describes as ‘Wahhabis’ and who, he says, are really political and not religious outfits, although they assume an ‘Islamic’ garb. ‘They walk in the path of money, not of Islam’, he says. In the name of jihad, he laments, ‘they have finished us off’. In contrast to their actions, he says, the ‘real jihad’ is to ‘develop a proper Islamic character and to convey the message of Islam to others’.
He cites the example of the widely revered Sufi saint, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti of Ajmer, as a ‘true mujahid’. Through his message of love and peace, he says, scores of people were attracted to Islam. In contrast to the Khwaja, the activities of several radical Islamist outfits have only succeeded in further repelling non-Muslims from Islam, as a result of which they see Muslims as ‘terrorists’. Rather than their activities being a genuine jihad, they are, he says, a ‘great strife’ or fitna, that has no legitimacy in Islam at all.

Like most other Muslims, H believes that Islam alone is the way to salvation, but, at the same time, he insists that Islamic missionary work has no room for violence. Rather, he argues that it is only through promoting love and peace that others can be receptive to the message of Islam, adding that this is precisely what the Prophet also sought to do. Non-Muslims are free to accept or reject Islam, and in no case should they be forced to do so.

H tells me that he has ‘nothing to do with politics’, but he believes that a solution to the issue of Kashmir must have the consent of all the various communities in the state. Perhaps, he says, joint rule by India and Pakistan for a few years is a possible solution. He thinks that many Kashmiris might prefer independence, rather than being ruled by Delhi or Islamabad, but says that this option is not without its dangers. In an independent Kashmir, he warns, there is a likelihood of civil war breaking out and sectarian violence spearheaded by ‘Wahhabis’, whom he describes, echoing the views of many other Barelvi scholars, as ‘blasphemers against the Prophet’ (gustakh-i rasul), accusing them of being imperialist creations in order to set Muslims against each other.

* * *
R is a practising Sufi, and is the custodian of a large dargah in Jammu. Like many other Barelvi scholars in Jammu, he, too, thinks that the Kashmir issue is political, and not religious as such.

‘No religion, properly interpreted, allows for killing innocent people’, R explains as I settle down on the mattress on the floor of his room, declining a chair that he offers me. In Islam, he tells me, one is allowed to take to arms only in self-defence, when one’s life or faith are under threat. Prior to the outbreak of the militant movement, the Kashmiri Muslims enjoyed freedom of both, he says and pauses, leaving me free to draw my own conclusion. ‘Yes, there have been human rights violations by the armed forces as well’, he admits when I point this out, ‘but the trouble started with the militants, so it’s not entirely the fault of the army’.

R is decidedly opposed to the Islamists, including the Lashkar-i Tayyeba and the Jama‘at-i Islami, groups whom he describes as ‘Wahhabis’. He denies that they are Islamic at all, and says that their demand for an Islamic state in Kashmir is untenable.
‘If Muslims demand an Islamic state in Kashmir of the sort that the Wahhabis want’, he says, ‘how can one deny Hindu groups the same right in India?’. He points out that the ‘Wahhabis’ and the Hindu right-wing feed on each other, both being ‘thoroughly anti-religious’ while claiming to be the greatest defenders of their respective faiths and communities. He also tells me that the Islamist militants in Kashmir have no concern about the grave consequences Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan or becoming independent might have for the Muslims living in the rest of India, who, he says, number 14 times the Kashmiri Muslim population. It is bound to lead to a strengthening of right-wing Hindu forces, he points out, who might wreak further havoc on the Indian Muslims.

R recognises that the actions of the militants has had a tremendously negative impact on non-Muslim perceptions of Islam and its adherents. ‘Ordinary people cannot distinguish us from the Wahhabis and so they now think that all Muslims are terrorists’, he says in despair. Yet, despite the what he calls the relentless ‘un-Islamic’ propaganda of ‘Wahhabi’ groups, he believes that the majority of the Kashmiri Muslims continue to deeply revere the Sufis. The ‘Wahhabis’ recognise this, and that is why, he claims, they do not openly reveal their beliefs or preach their views, such as their opposition to Sufism and the cults associated with their shrines. Were they to reveal their true beliefs, he says, they would be stiffly opposed by the Kashmiri Muslims themselves.

As R sees it, the ‘Wahhabi’ militants lack true piety, despite their claims of being true mujahids. Several of them are involved in militancy just to make money, he says. And some of them, particularly the leaders of militant groups in Pakistan, have raked in millions in the name of jihad, he assures me. ‘Their politics are totally against the Qur’an and the traditions of the Prophet. They say, no matter what happens, even if innocent people are raped or killed, we want to set up our own government. Surely, the Prophet did not act in this way!’. He refers to Pakistan as an example of a failed state, despite its claims of being a model Islamic country. ‘You can’t impose an Islamic system by force like that’, he says.

It is not easy for people like him to take on the militants directly, says R. Some, including moderate Muslim leaders (he cites the late Qazi Nisar, the Mirwaiz of south Kashmir as an example), who dared to do so have even paid for this with their lives. Rather, R says, he tries to do this indirectly, by telling Muslims about the Prophet and the Sufis and their message of love and tolerance and the meaning of the ‘true jihad’. ‘I point out that we must follow the Prophet alone in all matters, and behave as he did’, he explains. ‘That means that we must work for love and peace. That is precisely what the Sufis, who brought Islam to Kashmir, did, and we should walk in their path’.

R insists on the need for Muslim scholars to reach out to people of other communities. ‘We live in a multi-religious society and so must have good relations with each other. It is only through love and in a peaceful environment that we can disabuse others of the misunderstandings that they have of Islam’, he says. He admits the need for organised work for promoting inter-religious harmony, noting that hardly any efforts have been made in this regard in Jammu. ‘Each of us seems to obsessed with our own communities that we just do not think beyond’, he bemoans.

* * *

A is a Muslim school teacher from a village near Kishtwar, in the mountainous Doda district. I met him one afternoon at a tea stall outside the Jami‘a mosque in the largely Muslim locality of Mohalla Khatikan in Jammu. He looked plainly tired and harried as he sipped his tea and read out a newspaper story about the killing of a young man in Doda. Apparently, the youth had been kidnapped by a group of militants belonging to the dreaded Deobandi Harkat ul-Mujahidin, who kept him with them for a month. He was then killed by them because he had opposed the marriage of his relative with a Harkat militant.

‘We simply cannot do anything because we are poor people’, A says with an immense sigh. ‘On the one hand the army terrorises us, and on the other hand the militants. We can’t afford to speak up against either of the two’.

It is not just the Hindus who were being targeted by the militants, he explains. In fact, most of those killed in his area, by both the militants and the army, are Muslims. ‘And that means’, he declares emphatically, ‘that this is not a jihad at all’. ‘In a true jihad’, he says, ‘innocents cannot be targeted, women cannot be raped, you cannot steal other’s money or property, but this is precisely what is happening’.

A’s father is said to have been a practising Sufi, and A has inherited from him a passionate commitment to the Sufi way. This explains his strident opposition to the Islamist militants. ‘I used to firmly support the cause of Kashmiri independence’, he tells me, ‘but seeing what these so-called mujahids have done, murdering and looting in God’s name, I have come to the firm conclusion that it is best for us to be with India’.
‘If ever Kashmir becomes independent or joins Pakistan we will descend into civil war’, he warns. Denouncing Islamist radicals, he argues, ‘They claim to be working for an Islamic state, but that’s all hot air. We’ve seen what their agenda is from their actions’. And this includes what he sees as the Islamists’ fierce hostility to Sufism, or what A defines as ‘true’ Islam.
‘Although the militants don’t openly say so for fear of losing public support, we know that they see Sufism as un-Islamic and regard us as little better than polytheists. How can we trust or support such people?’, he asks.

As a devout Muslim, A sees as his primary task the mission of tabligh or communicating the message of Islam to others. That, he says, was the Prophet’s mission in life, not the capture of political power. The best and most effective way to convey Islam to others, he says, is through one’s own character. ‘If people see how noble and kind you are because you are a good Muslim, they would automatically be attracted to the faith’, he argues.
He sees the militants as not only having no interest whatsoever in tabligh and, in fact, as actually working to defeat all possibilities for attracting others to Islam. ‘The militants have created such a hatred in the minds of the Hindus here about Islam that no Hindu would at all be interested in, leave alone attracted to, Islam’, he rues.
He refers to Islamist ideologues and militant activists as endlessly proclaiming that Islam has the answer to all the ills of humankind, but then hurriedly adds that obviously no Hindu would ever accept this claim since the militants themselves refuse to act according to Islamic principles.
‘The Hindus answer, and rightly so, that all these wonderful things about Islam should first be practised by the militants themselves, and only then would they care to lend a ear to their propaganda’, he says.

Part 3; to be continued at this link
[Picture: Peer Baba Shrine. Photo: Official Web site of district Jammu.]

Friday, May 21, 2010

Busy With The Burqa

By Mohammed Al Shafey, *The Paris-Based Imam who Backs the Burqa Ban* - Asharq Al-Awsat - London, UK
Friday, May 14, 2010

London:  In light of the French government's fight to outlaw the burqa and niqab, French Imam Hassen Chalghoumi, who is a strong critic of full-face veiling, agreed to speak to Asharq Al-Awsat in a telephone interview about this controversial issue.

Chalghoumi believes that the tradition of wearing the niqab is very dangerous to the Islamic religion, as this is something that distorts the position of Muslim women in society. Chalghoumi, who is the Imam of the Drancy Mosque in Seine-Saint-Denis near Paris told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Quran does not call for Muslim women to wear the niqab, and he said that women who want to completely veil their faces should go to the tribal areas of Pakistan or Afghanistan where wearing the niqab is tradition.

Sheikh Chalghoumi is married to a French-Tunisian who wears the hijab [headscarf] rather than the niqab, and they have 5 children together.

Sheikh Chalghoumi is a vocal advocate of banning full-face veiling, and he has said that he supports French President Sarkozy's draft law to ban the burqa. Chalghoumi is considered to be part of a new generation of modern and moderate imams who strongly advocate a moderate interpretation of Islam. Chalghoumi has faced harsh criticism for his views, and he is currently living in a state of fear and anxiety after receiving death threats from Islamic extremists.

The Tunisian Imam who was born in Tunis in 1972 and immigrated to France in 1996 was even recently forced to flee his own mosque under police escort after being attacked by the congregation after airing his views. Muslims in Drancy have called for Chalghoumi to be removed from his post as the Imam of the Drancy Mosque for his controversial views and statements. For his part, Chalghoumi told Asharq Al-Awsat that there is a large "silent majority" who support him and his views.

For the past 10 years, Sheikh Chalghoumi, along with prominent Arab, Muslim, Jewish, and Christian figures, has been promoting the principles of coexistence, and denouncing racism, extremism, and fanaticism.

The following is the text of the interview:

[Asharq Al-Awsat] What do you think of the sanctions that were decided recently, known as the "niqab sanctions," starting with the fining of a French lady who was wearing a niqab while driving her car, and the fining of a husband if he forces his wife to wear a niqab?

[Chalghoumi] Look at the words of Almighty God when He commanded that Muslims should lower their gaze [in the face of a woman]. This means that the niqab was not widespread when the Koran revelation came to the graceful Prophet. It was not prevalent at that time and this is why Almighty God commanded that the believers should lower their gaze. Regrettably, what happens is that women attract men's gaze by wearing the niqab. In other words, women seeking to avoid what is religiously forbidden have found themselves in a worse position. As is known in religion, a woman's face and hands are not meant to be covered.

We notice backwardness in the Middle East today in terms of education and knowledge because women's progress is impeded. As far as I am concerned, wearing a niqab is no different from the burying of newborn female babies alive in the jahiliyah [pre-Islamic era in Arabia]. If a woman is good, her situation will be good and her children will be good.

The niqab conveys an image of our men as lustful and sex obsessed. This is not true. Muslim men are wise, reliable, proud, and courageous. We do not call for showing off but for moderation and a middle-of-the-road approach.

The sanctions in question were simple in being 22 euros for the lady because she was wearing the niqab while driving a car. She was fined because she could not have a clear field of vision. In other words, she could have put herself or others in danger on a public road. This means that lives are threatened on the road because of the niqab the lady was wearing and that obstructed her vision. She wanted to exonerate herself and hired a lawyer to defend her.

Meanwhile, the prosecutor found out that her husband is married to three other women, in addition to her. She is aware of this and agrees to it. This means that her husband married this French lady legally and three others outside the provisions of the positive [secular rather than Shariaa] law that does not accept marriage with several wives. The other disaster is that they are getting social security help from the state.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] How would you explain the escalation of the situation and the ban on niqab in most European countries, almost simultaneously?

[Chalghoumi] The sight of a Muslim lady clad in all black garments is ugly and scary. Today, we are engaged in dialogue and discussions. I receive threats because I am against the niqab. In the fifties, French women fought to have the right to vote in elections and to have a prestigious place in society. This means that in the fifties French women wanted their voices to be heard in society, while Muslim women in 2010 want to wear the niqab. Is this reasonable?

Wearing the niqab does not look nice. It transgresses on generally accepted concepts, and annoys the French. Moreover the niqab conveys a distorted idea about our graceful religion. In other words, the niqab humiliates Muslim women, limits their freedom, and prevents their natural role in social life. We should ask the niqab-wearing ladies a question: Is the face not a person's identity? It is not fair to reduce the 15-century-old graceful Islamic religion to a black piece of cloth, a "black rag." Our religion is more important than this. Islam has nothing to do with the niqab. Like Europe, Islam calls for the upholding of values and for being kind to others.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] How would you comment on your years-long preaching to Europe's Muslims to abide by prevailing European laws and norms?

[Chalghoumi] When Islam arrived 14 centuries ago, it blended in with previous civilizations and laws in terms of clothes, garments, and prevailing laws. We must respect the laws of the European countries where we have been living, since we arrived there with a pact and a covenant that we must abide by and not transgress. How can we show the grace and fairness of our holy religion if we do not show commitment to prevailing laws?

Because our Prophet Muhammad was honest and sincere and kind to others, we must abide by, and be committed to, laws. We must not deceive others, be hypocrites, or lie to people in Europe under the claim that the Europeans are unbelievers whose property it is religiously permissible to get, as the fatwas issued by fundamentalists claim. We seek refuge in God from any sin, and we pray to God to protect us, because Islam is the religion of right, justice, equality, and mercy. It is not the religion of the takfiriyin [those who hold other Muslims to be infidels] and certain Salafi movements that uphold that it is religiously permissible to take the unbelievers' property. They adhere to the religion's commandments selectively and whimsically.

Look at France's jails. Regrettably, they harbor many sons of Muslims. I can affirm to Asharq Al-Awsat that, according to French statistics, 60 percent of jail inmates are sons of Muslims. The statistics do not mention that they are Muslims but provide their ethnic origins. According to official figures, 300 of them commit suicide each year, while dozens of others deviate from the serious path of the graceful religion and get involved in drugs, moral decadence, and terrorism.

We are busy with the niqab and whether it is legitimate or not at a time when thousands of the sons of Muslims are living in French social institutions after their parents disavowed them. Moreover, academic failure is rife amid Muslims. We should ask ourselves about the priorities of Muslims in Europe. Is it education and learning or bragging about what is wrong, changing one's car, building a house in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, or Egypt, or engaging in a "defamatory argument" about the niqab? We need to gain education and learning, not the wearing of the niqab. We do not need a competition over who wears the longest beard or the shortest robe with trousers tucked up under them, as the fundamentalists do.

We need to follow the example of the Prophet and Messenger. A brother answered me in a debate over the radio and swore on the air that the niqab will enter the Elysee Palace one day. I replied to him and swore like him that "Islam will enter the Elysee Palace only with the morals of the Prophet Muhammad, the last messenger and Prophet, who was a mercy sent down to mankind, not with your niqab that has made people dislike Islam."

A few days ago, shots were fired at a mosque in the south of France. There is no smoke without fire. They are now afraid of this "black Islam."

[Asharq Al-Awsat] How would you explain the fact that, contrary to their fathers, the second and third generations [of Muslim immigrants] are less integrated in European societies?

[Chalghoumi] I will give you an example from the community around me, my relatives and compatriots. The fathers who came from our Arab countries in the fifties and sixties came for a precise objective of to work and then go back. They came with a determined goal. They held the view that they should respect this country, that they were ambassadors of their mother countries here. They were supposed to stay here for 10 or 15 years and then return to their respective countries, cherished and dignified. But those who are born in France for instance are marginalized because they do not know their religion. They have moved away from it. Moreover, when they go to their homelands, they are seen as foreigners there. In other words, they have no reference to turn toward.

Also, the French Government has placed them in closed districts, like ghettos. The priorities of these immigrant families were not moral education or learning religion, but buying cars or furniture for their apartments. This pushes the young toward moral delinquency, or makes them fall into the claws of terrorism, drugs, and extremism.

Meanwhile, we are busy with the burqa, the niqab, and the question of whether they are religiously permissible or not. We are also preoccupied with the war between India and Pakistan, and the violence and destruction in the tribal zone there. These should not be the priorities of the Muslim communities in Europe, which I sum up in two words: "Education and knowledge."

[Asharq Al-Awsat] What is the position of the Muslim community concerning your fatwas? Are those who are against them more numerous than their supporters?

[Chalghoumi] Regrettably, the majority is silent. This means that they agree, but they do so in deep silence. There is a minority of people who are against them, together with hard-line Salafi movement elements. They do not support me and do not side with me. This applies to the Muslim Brotherhood movement activists, who do not want somebody like me. Those who side with me are the Sufis [mystics] and the moderate people who follow the middle-of-the-road line. I am also supported by those who have no specific leanings or think about coexistence and integration into French society.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] What would you say to the fundamentalist imams who are not pleased with your religious discourse?

[Chalghoumi] I say: "Repel (evil) with what is better; then will he between whom and thee was hatred become as it were thy friend and intimate," [Partial Koranic verse, Fussilat, 41:34]. In other words, I answer them with what is better, meaning with evidence and proof. "He who believes in God and doomsday should say something good or remain silent [saying of Prophet Muhammad]."

We must show people that extremism is rife in Europe because of the spread of the hard-line fundamentalist movement that has gone underground in fear of the new counterterrorism. These fundamentalist trends are to be found in most countries, and Europe cannot avoid the presence of this extremist fundamentalist thought. By the end of this month, I am going to publish a book entitled: Sheikh Hassen Chalghoumi: For a French Islam. The book will be in the hands of readers on 20 May. It has 400 pages and broaches a large number of issues related to the daily life of the sons of the Muslim community in the united Europe.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] Have you already met with President Nicholas Sarkozy?

[Chalghoumi] Yes, I have met with him several times. But, I have good news for you: There are many moderate imams like me. President Sarkozy thanked me and said: The French Republic is grateful to you; this is the moderate Islam we want. We hope that the Muslims will also assume their duty.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] Where did you learn Islamic jurisprudence, and how did you qualify for the role of a preacher in the West?

[Chalghoumi] I studied in the Zitouna Institute in Tunisia and obtained a Baccalaureate in letters. I learned the jurisprudence of the holy religion in the Zitouna Institute too. I later went to Damascus, where I finished my religious science studies for two years. Then, I traveled to Lahore, Pakistan, where I studied jurisprudence, Shariaa, and religious science for three years. Then, I went to India for six months. I came to France as a student in 1996, in the historic town of Bobigny. I married at the end of the same year.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] What is a European Muslim? Should he be loyal to the state or to religion?

[Chalghoumi] His loyalty should be to Almighty God, but what is our religion? Is it not the religion of mercy and humanity? Is it not the religion of kindness and compassion? Also, is Europe not an ensemble of states of the rule of law, respect for human rights and for the religion in which we believe to promote the value of man? How can our graceful religion not be in harmony with the humanitarian European values?

[Asharq Al-Awsat] What is your preaching line, your own line?

[Chalghoumi] The middle-of-the-road line in Islam. This means excluding bigotry, extremism, and intransigence. For no one can claim to make absolutely correct judgments. No one is immune from being wrong, and no one has the absolute truth in knowledge. Also, no one can claim to be in possession of the keys to interpretation, judgments, and the reading of texts.

Therefore, the middle-of-the-road line is the most important behavior. It is a cultural method that can lead man to understanding. In dealing with all issues and matters, we as individuals, groups, doctrines, scholars, and opinion holders should follow the principle that says: "My view is right but may be wrong, and your view is wrong but may be right."

There were two schools of thought and movements close to people in Tunisia: one was Sufism and the other was the Attabligh [conveying the call] group. I learned from them leniency and wise talk before I carried preaching in my heart and mind to other countries.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] What advice would you give to Muslim families in Europe?

[Chalghoumi] I urge them to be their respective countries' ambassadors, and to abandon nationalist and sectarian Islam. First, we should say that our children are part of ourselves, then we should love these European countries the way we love our own homelands. We should zealously protect their security and peace.

In my sermons I pray to God to bestow security and peace on these countries where we live. I pray to Almighty God to help us ensure the security of these countries, and to protect and reassure us. One of the brothers has sent me a videotape containing the Friday sermon of an extremist, fundamentalist preacher, in which he says: "God, please destroy their homes, undermine their lives, and make their women widows." This is not the Islam of mercy, and has nothing to do with the prayer of the graceful Prophet when he said, addressing the polytheists of his Quraysh tribe: "Please God, forgive my people because they are ignorant."

And when the Prophet's companions said to him: Prophet of God, curse them! The Prophet replied: "I have not been sent as a curse but rather a guide to the pious ones and a mercy to mankind."

[Asharq Al-Awsat] Would you encourage Muslim families to send their children to Islamic schools?
[Chalghoumi] Many schools are good, and in harmony with our time and science, not just religious science. But what is important is to stay away from sectarian schools where children are taught and their minds crammed with Salafi Jihadist thought. They should teach children the morals of Islam and its commandments regarding daily life.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] How do you explain the rise of the extremist right in Europe in recent years? Is this motivated by the fear of Muslims?

[Chalghoumi] There is no smoke without fire. In addition to the presence of fundamentalist trends in European capitals and the emergence of their leaders who call for not rubbing shoulders with local societies, there is also the way certain Arab states deal with Europe. Concerning the recent crisis over minarets, certain Arab states dealt with Switzerland without deep reflection and wisdom.

Who pays the price for this? The price is paid by Muslims living in Europe.

Monday, May 31, 2010

IAS Annual Symposium
1 comment:
By IAS, *Coleman Barks, Rumi and the Sufism Symposium* - International Association of Sufism - Novato, CA, USA
Monday, May 24, 2010

“Human Dignity and the 21st Century”

Coleman Barks will read Rumi’s poetry with music by Talia Toni Marcus and her soaring violin, at the opening of the 2010 Sufism Symposium, at 7:00 pm, Friday, June 25, at Angelico Hall, Dominican University of California, San Rafael, CA. Tickets are $25 by mail before June 15 or $30 at the door.

The Symposium, “Human Dignity and the 21st Century,” continues on Saturday and Sunday, June 26 and 27, at Embassy Suites Hotel, San Rafael, CA.

The Annual Symposium will include members of IAS as well as many delegates from other Sufi Orders and countries.

Scheduled to appear:

Nahid Angha, Ph.D.
is Co-Director of the International Association of Sufism (IAS), founder of the International Sufi Women Organization, the main representative of the IAS to the United Nations (NGO/DPI), and inductee to the Marin Women's Hall of Fame. Her works for global peace earned the IAS the "Messenger of Manifesto 2000" recognition by the UNESCO. Her lectures include:"Human Rights, Responsibility and Spirituality, "Humanitarian Intervention: A Way towards Global Peace, U N; Women in Islam, Cape Town; Sufism: Literature and Poetry, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D. C.; Sufism, Universal Forum of Cultures: Spain 2004, Mexico 2007.

Sheikha Ayshegul Ashki al-Jerrahi, MA, HHP
is a Sufi teacher within Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi Community, directed and guided by Sheikha Fariha al-Jerrahi. She currently resides and offers the teachings and practices of her Sufi Path in Tustin, California. While these teachings and practices are deeply rooted in Islamic Sufism, she universalizes them on the shared core principles of human mystic experience. She leads Retreats, presents in Conferences, participates in Interfaith and Trans-traditional Councils, and Community Service Groups. She holds a BA in Education, and an MA in Science of Creative Intelligence. Ashki is from Turkey, married and has three children.

Shahid Athar, MD, FACP, FACE
is a Clinical Associate Professor and an Endocrinologist in private practice in Indianapolis.

Arthur F. Buehler, Ph.D.
is a Senior Lecturer at Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand specializing in Sufism and Contemplative Practice.

Nevit Ergin, MD
a surgeon who has practiced medicine since 1955, has been a student of Sufism and the poetry of Rumi for close to fifty years. His life's work has been the translation of all 44,000 verses of Rumi's writings: the Divan-i Kebir, a process that has unfolded over a 25-year period. Recently a limited edition replica was made from the original Divans located in the Konya Museum. The replica is exhibited by the Society for Understanding Mevlana, founded by Dr. Ergin and his friends in 1992, a non-profit organization dedicated to the continued study of Rumi and his works.

Mary Ann D. Fadae, Ph.D.
is a member of the Jerrahi Order of America, whose spiritual center is in Istanbul, Turkey. She has taught courses in the history of Western Civilization, Arabic language, and the religion of Islam at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI).

Sheikha Azima Lila Forest
is a teacher with the Sufi Ruhaniat International, and a Unitarian Universalist minister.

Sonia Leon Gilbert
has been a president of the M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship and Mosque for thirty-seven years. The wisdom and teachings of this great Sufi Sheik are gratefully reflected in Sonia's many speeches and written works, as well as enthusiastic engagements in interfaith dialogues. Topic: HEART'S WORK.

Nafisa Haji
is the author of the novel *The Writing On My Forehead* and is currently working on her second novel. She earned her doctorate in Educational Leadership from UCLA, focusing her research on caring, long-term relationships between teachers and students.

Kabir Helminski
is a Shaykh of the Mevlevi Order which traces back to Jalaluddin Rumi. His books on spirituality, Living Presence and The Knowing Heart, have been published in at least eight languages. He has translated the works of Rumi and others, and has toured as Shaykh with the Whirling Dervishes of Turkey bringing Sufi culture to more than 100,000 people. Kabir is also Co-Director, with his wife Camille, of The Threshold Society (Sufism.org), which seeks to apply the wisdom of the Sufi tradition to contemporary needs. He is a core faculty member of the Spiritual Paths Institute (spiritualpaths.net), and lives near Santa Cruz, California.

Arife Ellen Hammerle, Ph.D., MA, LMFT, JD
a student of the Uwaiysi School of Sufism, as guided by Sufi Teachers Dr. Nahid Angha and Shah Nazar Seyyed Dr. Ali. Kianfar, is a member of the International Association of Sufism, the Sufism Psychology Forum, and a Board member of the Institute for Sufi Studies.

Ibrahim Jaffe, MD
is the President Emeritus and the spiritual director of the University of Spiritual Healing and Sufism. Dr. Jaffe is the Muqqadam Murrabi Ruhi ar-Ra'is (head Muqqadam) of the Shadhiliyya Sufi Center in the West under Shaykh Muhammad al-Jamal ar-Rifa`i as- Shadhili from Jerusalem.

Pir Shabda Kahn
a direct disciple of the American Sufi Master, Murshid Samuel Lewis, has been practicing Sufism since 1969 and is the Pir (Spiritual Director) of the Sufi Ruhaniat International, the lineage tracing from Hazrat Inayat Khan and Murshid Samuel Lewis.

Tamam Kahn
is a senior teacher in The Sufi Ruhaniat International. Her book *Untold: A History of the Wives of Prophet Muhammad* has just been published. She is editor-in-chief of "The Sound Journal," an online journal serving the Sufi Ruhaniat Community. She is married to Pir Shabda Kahn.

David Katz, MD
born in Wisconsin and graduated in philosophy from Stanford University, is married to Anne Katz, who has also been a student of Sheikh Bawa Muhaiyaddeen since 1976. Dr. Katz is the president of the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship, California Branch, and practices as a family physician in Sacramento, California, guided by the healing teachings offered by Sheikh Bawa.

Shah Nazar Seyyed Ali Kianfar, Ph.D.
is the co-director, co-founder of the International Association of Sufism, and Editor-in-Chief of Sufism: An Inquiry. An internationally published author and lecturer, he was appointed to teach Sufism by his Sufi Master of the Uwaiysi Tariquat, Hazrat Moulana Shah Maghsoud. Dr. Kianfar has taught Sufism and Islamic philosophy throughout the world for over 30 years, with thousands of students around the globe. He represented the USA at the UNESCO Culture of Peace Conference in Uzbekistan and the IAS for a cooperative educational program with Al-Azhar University in Cairo. Dr. Kianfar's new books: *Seasons of the Soul* and *Fatema* (Farsi) have been well received and his Zikr has been published numerous times.

Emanuel L. Levin (Musa Muhaiyaddeen)
is a direct disciple of the Sufi mystic and teacher Bawa Muhaiyaddeen. He has traveled throughout Europe, Turkey and North America, speaking on the teachings of Bawa Muhaiyaddeen and Sufism. He is the author of *On the Road to Infinity*.

Safa Ali Michael Newman, JD
is President of the Board of Directors of the International Association of Sufism and Chairperson of the Association's Executive Committee of the Institute for Sufi Studies.

Sharon G. Mijares, Ph.D.
is a Licensed Psychologist, member of the Sufi Ruhaniat International, the International Association of Sufism's Sufi Women's Organization, and an ordained Sufi Minister of Universal Worship.

Alhaj Shah Sufi Syed Mainuddin Ahmed
the president of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, in Bangladesh, has built an orphanage, Madrasa, free clinic and an Islamic complex at Maizbhandar Darbar Sharif, Chittagong, Bangladesh.

Shahzada-e-Gausul Azam Shah Sufi Alhaj Syed Saifuddin Ahmed Al Hasni Wal Hussaini Maizbhandari
is the only son of Baba Mainuddin Ahmed Al-Hasani Wal-Hussain. He has participated in countless international seminars and symposiums.

Professor Arthur Kane Scott
teaches humanities/social cultural studies at Dominican University of California. His specialty is Islamic Studies, where he has taken the lead in bringing the truth of Islam both to the campus as well as to the greater Bay Area as lecturer/scholar through authoring an on-line course, History of Islam/Middle East, for University of California Berkeley Extension. He has established at Dominican the Islamic Institute for elementary/secondary school teachers, is a practicing Sufi and has written many articles on Sufism in Sufism: An Inquiry.

Bahman A.K. Shirazi, Ph.D
is a faculty member at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco and The Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (ITP) in Palo Alto, California. Bahman teaches in the areas of integral yoga and psychology, Sufi Psychology, and transpersonal psychology. His publications include book chapters and articles in the areas of integral psychology and Sufi psychology.

***
Music Performances by:

Taneen Sufi Music Ensemble
sings the love poetry of the great Sufi masters in English translation, making the profound message of unity accessible to all audiences. Since in 1996 these Sufi practioners have shared their meditation-inspired music locally and internationally, in such peace-building venues as the Nobel Peace Institute and Parliament of World’s Religions.

Radio Istanbul
is a Bay Area ensemble that provides live Turkish music played on traditional instruments. Established and directed by Haluk Kecelioglu, Radio Istanbul plays an exciting mix of acoustic music ranging from elegant classical Ottoman suites to lively dance pieces from various regions of Turkey. The ensemble features Haluk Kecelioglu on Ud and vocals, Ahmet Cagin on Kanun and vocals, Mary Farris on Ney and Clarinet and Faisal Zedan on percussion.

***
Psychology Panel
(Can be registered for separately):
Saturday, June 26, 3:00 - 5:00 pm
Embassy Suites Hotel, San Rafael, CA
The Dignity of Being Human
2 CEUs Available

Moderated by Amineh Amelia Pryor, Ph.D.
a psychotherapist at the Community Healing Centers, a non-profit psychotherapy practice with offices in San Francisco and Marin. Dr. Pryor is a student of Uwaiysi Sufism and an active member of the International Association of Sufism. She presents at local and international conferences and is the author of Psychology in Sufism and Sufi Grace.

Mary Toth Granick, M. Ed., LMFT
is a licensed psychotherapist in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she works with adults, couples, and adolescents and their families. She also has extensive experience and a background in school-based counseling services in various settings in the Bay Area. She is a student of Uwaiysi Sufism and a member of the International Association of Sufism. Ms. Toth Granick has contributed articles in the SPF Newsletter and the journal, Sufism: An Inquiry. She has also presented her work with Sufism and Psychology at various retreats and workshops in the Bay Area.

Michelle Ritterman, Ph.D.
pioneered the integration of hypnosis and family therapy, and has trained thousands of therapists in her approach to working with couple and families. A student of Milton Erickson, she originated the concept of the symptom as a trance state - shared and separate track trances - in family and couple interactions, and also the development of therapeutic counterinductions. See is a prolific author whose work includes the books Using Hypnosis in Family Therapy, Hope Under Siege, The Tao of a Woman, and a CD entitled Shared Couple's Trance. She can be contacted through her website: http://www.micheleritterman.com/

Robert H. Walters Ph.D.
is a Clinical Psychologist and has been in private practice in Menlo Park, CA. since 1990. In addition to working with individuals in psychotherapy he has been training and supervising interns at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology since 1995. He also does training for interns at Christian Counseling Center in Fremont CA. His primary professional and personal interest is in attempting to integrate psychological and spiritual dimensions of experience. To his surprise and delight, he continues to find some of the finest articulations of deep spiritual sensibilities embedded in contemporary psychoanalytic literature and some of the most useful prescriptions for psychological hardiness within inspired texts from a variety of spiritual traditions.

***
The Symposium is sponsored by the International Association of Sufism, headquartered in Novato. Tickets are $175 for all 3 days before June 15 or $200 at the door; Students and seniors, $150. Tickets for individual days are also available. All events are open to the public and wheelchair accessible. For information and tickets, call (415) 382-7834 or go to http://www.sufismsymposium.org/

THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SUFISM
14 Commercial Blvd. #101, Novato, CA 94949
(415) 382-7834 * http://www.ias.org/
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Sunday, May 30, 2010

Feqiye Teyran
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By Aise Karabat, *State to sponsor Kurdish literature festival in June* - Today's Zaman - Istanbul, Turkey
Monday, May 24, 2010

Ankara: The Ministry of Culture and the General Secretariat for European Union Affairs (ABGS) will sponsor a Kurdish literature festival, to be held in Bahçesaray, in Van province, in late June honoring the memory of the 17th century Kurdish Sufi poet Feqiye Teyran.

Turkey’s chief EU negotiator Egemen Bağış told Today’s Zaman that the fact that the state has come to the point of sponsoring a Kurdish literature festival is significant for the government’s Kurdish initiative.

Bağış participated in the first Feqiye Teyran festival, which was held last year. In his speech there, he noted that although this very important Kurdish poet had been deliberately ignored for many years, his work did not disappear. “This means we cannot put our heads into the sand and ignore the existence of some problems, as this does not mean that they will disappear,” he had said at the opening of the first festival last year.

“Feqiye Teyran” means “the teacher of the birds” in Kurdish.

Teyran was a Sufi poet at the beginning of the 17th century who lived in Bahçesaray. He is mentioned in the “ant drinking water” story by Yasar Kemal, who is invited to the festival this year alongside many other Turkish and foreign writers.

[Picture: Turkish Writer Yasar Kemal. Photo: Yasar Kemal's Website.]
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Saturday, May 29, 2010

Lights On
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By Jerome Taylor, *Salman Ahmad: Rock against extremism* - The Independent - London, UK
Monday, May 24, 2010

The 'Muslim Bono', is in the UK with a striking message: make music, not war

There aren't many rock stars out there who have sold 30 million albums but can still walk the streets of London in obscurity. But then Salman Ahmad is no ordinary musician. Chances are most people in the West won't have heard of his group Junoon. Yet across the South Asian subcontinent, Ahmad's band is legendary.

Over the past two decades Junoon have played to millions of adoring fans across Pakistan, India and Bangladesh in an area of the world where western music is often greeted with outright hostility among conservatives.

Nowhere is this more true than in Pakistan where Junoon was formed. As legions of Saudi-trained scholars took over Pakistan's madrasas, teaching their students how all forms of art other than the recitation of the Qur'an is haram [forbidden], Junoon's popularity has stood out as one of many examples of how the Pakistani love affair with art continues unabated.

Ahmad, the band's founder and guitarist, could have opted for the life of your average rock star, watching the royalties pile up. Instead he has become a vociferous critic of Muslim extremists who have little issue with assassinating Islamic scholars, let alone musicians.

The 46-year-old is in Britain to try to hammer home an important message as part of a tour to promote his new biography, Rock'n'Roll Jihad: A Muslim Rock star's Revolution. He wants Muslims and non-Muslims alike to stand up for the rights of artists in areas of the world where intolerant strands of religious dogma threaten to wipe away centuries of Islamic culture.

Among British Muslims the same arguments abound over what is permissible. One of the reasons rap is popular among a section of young Muslim artists, for instance, is because hip-hop can get around those interpretations of Islam that condemn singing.

But Ahmad wants to tell British Muslims that all forms of music are permitted as long as the message is pure. Last week he travelled to Oxford to speak to the university's union for Pakistani students. On graduation, many of them will eventually return to Pakistan and will have a sizeable say in the country's direction.

Ahmad is holding meetings with a group of influential Muslim bankers as well as touring some London mosques. He is also scheduled to play music at a mosque in Stratford which is run by Minhaj ul Qur'an, a prominent Pakistani Sufi organisation whose leader, Sheikh Tahir ul-Qadri, recently released a fatwa condemning all terrorism and suicide bombings.

"For the last 1,400 years there have been so many rich contributions towards culture from the Muslim community," said Ahmad who, with his ponytail, sunglasses and tunic looks like a Muslim version of Bono or Jimmy Page. "And yet I have always had to confront this minority view, from extremely conservative mullahs, who believe that music is haram."

In a world where the so-called "war on terror" is all too often fought with air strikes, the suggestion that art could somehow help turn the tide against militancy might seem whimsical. But people like Ahmad, himself a practising Muslim, and the Quilliam Foundation, a think tank made up of former Islamist extremists, believe that these "soft" approaches to countering violent Islamism play as vital a role in confronting intolerance.

"What extremists fear – and this is what arts have the power to do – is the opening up of people's minds," says Ahmad. "For people who want to control the social agenda, culture is a threat. When you look at Pakistan, 100 million of the 150 million people there are under the age of 18. The extremists know that and that's their target market. I remember once an imam told me ,'If thousands of kids started going to rock concerts, who would come to my khutbahs [sermons]?'"

For those who might think that Junoon is simply a western secular rock product foisted on Pakistan, think again. Their music is a blend of Led Zeppelin-esque rock, South Asian drum beats and Sufi poetry. The sex and drugs elements of rock'n'roll don't get a look in with Junoon's lyrics, which are closely aligned to the Qawwali devotional songs sung by mystic Sufis – songs that revolve around Allah's love for all things.

It was as a teen while living in New York that Ahmad first fell in love with rock'n'roll. After telling his parents that he wanted to become a rock star, the 18-year-old Ahmad was plucked out of high school and sent to study medicine back in Lahore. He arrived back in Pakistan in 1981 as the country's military dictator, General Zia ul-Haq, was overseeing its Islam- ification, turning the nation away from its tolerant Sufi roots and steering it towards a Saudi-inspired religious society of austerity, intolerance and militant zeal. It probably wasn't the best atmosphere in which start up a rock band but Ahmad and his university friends were determined.

"We organised a secret talent contest in the basement of a hotel," he said. "Anyone could come along."

Ahmad had been practising Eddie Van Halen's famously complex guitar solo "Eruption" and as he let rip on stage the screaming began. Youth members of Jamaat-e-Islami, the Islamic party which was initially a favourite of the Zia regime, had found out about the meeting and stormed into the room. As the women were covered up, one of the cadres went to work on Ahmad's guitar. "They completely Pete Townsended it," he said.

Ahmad went on to become Pakistan's most recognisable rock stars despite heavy resistance from militant clerics. "This extremist view decides, well if the West has it [music], we can't," Ahmad says. "They say that, because you wear jeans, or a ponytail, you must be westernised and therefore not a good Muslim. The way to counter that kind of debate is to to say, 'Hang on a minute; there were Muslims who had long hair 1,000 years ago, playing the oud [lute]. They were devout."

Since 11 September the band has been courted by the international community as some sort of interfaith flag bearers. They are more likely to rock diplomats at the UN Security Council than hordes of screaming fans in Delhi's Nehru Stadium, but that is something Ahmad is willing to countenance if it means he can show the world a different side to Islam.

"A terrorist is given centre stage on front page news every day," he says. "Those trying to do good in the Muslim world have a very limited voice."

Last month the band were asked to play a gig in New York's Times Square for Earthday. A week later, Faisal Shazhad, a 30-year-old Pakistani-American, is said to have parked an SUV laden with explosives in Times Square in a failed bombing which the Pakistani Taliban have since claimed. "The extremist doesn't even have successfully to detonate a bomb and he's an overnight rock star. Morons are being treated like heroes, which really pisses me off," says Ahmad.

What the world needs to do, he says, is be brave enough to confront extremism. "In a darkened room a piece of rope looks like a snake, doesn't it?" he asks. "But when you turn the lights on you see it's just a piece of rope. We need to turn the lights on."

Picture: Salman Ahmad: the Pakistani musician is campaigning against the dogma that threatens centuries of Islamic culture. Photo: Susannah Ireland.
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Friday, May 28, 2010

"Honey!"
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By John-Paul Flintoff, *A funny thing happened on the way to the mosque* - The Sunday Times - London, UK
Sunday, May 23, 2010

An increasing number of Britons are converting to Islam. Mosques are open to the public, so it is possible simply to wander in and try the religion for size?

London Central Mosque, near Lord’s cricket ground. I have passed it 1,000 times. Years ago, on the bus, I stared admiringly at the golden dome. More recently, pushing my daughter on the swings at nearby Regent's Park, I’ve noticed the gold needs touching up. But in the past few weeks I’ve been wondering whether I dared to step inside, as if it were a church, for a spot of peace and reflection.

Like many other people brought up in no particular religious tradition, I’ve dabbled - attended a wide variety of Christian churches, married into a substantially Jewish family and looked extensively into Buddhism. But I'd never tried Islam, although the Central Mosque is one of more than 1,500 in Britain, serving a fast-growing British Muslim community that already numbers some 2.4m people - rather more than the 1.7m Anglicans who attend church each week. And I am intrigued by the thought that there may be lessons I could learn. Like it or not, mosques are a part of our landscape that’s here to stay. And they're open to the public - so what stopped me before?

Despite thinking of myself as open-minded, I've come to believe that getting close to Islam can be dangerous. After all, extremists like Abu Hamza recruited through mosques such as Finsbury Park, and I've interviewed people who told me that went on at other mosques too. But one reformed extremist, Ed Husain, now runs a counter-extremist think-tank and strongly encouraged me to visit a mosque. Who knows, I might discover that the prayer mat and the pew have much in common.

And so, on a Friday in spring, I took myself to the Central Mosque for lunchtime prayers. A vast, largely male crowd gathered, like at football grounds. Inside the great hall, I sat on the carpet like everyone else, at the back. I admired the geometric design inside the domed roof and watched the men around me - poor Bengalis from nearby estates, prosperous Arabs up from Edgware Road, and assorted Kosovars and Bosnians. Here and there, small children rolled about quietly.

After half an hour of Arabic, the imam spoke in English on the need to apologise after doing wrong. He addressed us as “dear brothers and sisters” - somewhere unseen, women were listening to him too.

Then the call to prayer began, and people behind me pushed forward to fill gaps. A few, having secured a place, turned and beckoned me to join them. But I was only here to observe, so I smiled and stayed where I was - until an angry-looking man stepped out of line and beckoned more forcefully. I meekly followed - only to find myself on a mat facing Mecca, bending at the hips as if to inspect my shoes, then dropping to my knees to rest my nose on the mat, bottom in the air, holes in socks for all to see, muttering “Allahu akbar” (God is great).

It wasn’t the most spiritual moment in my life. When it finished, I got up and joined 8,000 other people in a mad rush to retrieve shoes.

The past 15 years have seen a phenomenal growth of Islam within Britain’s indigenous and African-Caribbean communities, according to Batool Al-Toma, who runs the Leicestershire-based New Muslims Project. Born Mary Geraghty, she’s a former Catholic who embraced Islam three decades ago. She wears a headscarf and a long floral coat modestly buttoned up to her neck, but retains a feisty, bustling quality not uncommon in middle-aged Irishwomen.
Hundreds of people have come to Al-Toma’s office to convert to Islam, which involves no more than reciting the shahada (a conviction that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is his prophet).

"People ask how many I’ve converted," she said. "They ask that all the time, as if I'm out there with my net." She told me she discourages would-be converts if she thinks that they - or their families and friends - are not ready. And that can take a very long time: her own children were born into Islam and have embraced it as adults but when she went to Ireland recently to visit family with her son, he was constantly rebuked for wearing a beard “to promote Islam”.

Sarah Joseph is the editor and CEO of a Muslim lifestyle magazine, emel. Like Al-Toma, she was brought up Catholic but converted 22 years ago after losing her faith. It was very painful.
A priest said, don’t worry, we all have doubts." Meanwhile, her brother married a Muslim and converted. Joseph looked into Islam and was surprised to find “intellectually satisfying answers".
Like Al-Toma, she knows it can be hard to keep the support of friends and family. “Some families can feel a degree of bereavement,” she says. “It’s as if your child has given up on the right path, the middle-class dream. People think, ‘Oh my God, what have they become?’”

Another convert, Yahya (formerly Jonathan) Birt - son of the former BBC director-general John Birt - agrees that embracing Islam can cause upset. “Converts can be labelled traitors or, more kindly, eccentrics.” So why bother? What can possibly be the attraction?

Birt is reluctant to talk about his own conversion, in 1989, because to people who are cynical about religion it can sound deluded or pretentious. It's a personal matter, he stresses. His own interest arose after meeting somebody who seemed to embody the religious life at its best: “It took me over three years to get past my own lack of interest in all things religious to ask him about his faith. I was presented with no argument but simply with holiness, with the possibilities of contentment, integrity and wholeness that the religious life offers. Saintliness is its own argument.”

Impressed, I wondered if it might be possible to get some taste of Islam - but without actually converting. To practise, if you like, some kind of Islam-lite - like dipping into Christianity by trying the Alpha course.

To begin, I spent weeks reading about Islam, and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him, as the books said). Jemima Khan, perhaps the most prominent convert of recent times, spent six or seven months reading Islamic scholars such as Gai Eaton, Alija Izetbegovic and Muhammad Asad. “What began as intellectual curiosity slowly ripened into a dawning realisation of the universal and eternal truth,” she said. I tried those authors, and others too.

But I didn’t read the Koran. People say it’s fundamentally untranslatable, and I don’t have time to learn Arabic.

On Google I found my local mosque, the Islamic Centre of Brent. Its website listed daily prayer times that were a couple of months out of date. Elsewhere, the site offered audio files for the whole Koran, and forms to download for child benefit, housing benefit, jobseeker’s allowance and visas for Pakistan.

After phoning ahead, I wandered over and met the manager. Yasir Alam was quietly spoken, with a mild Pakistani accent. When I mentioned the calendar on the website he looked pained: he’d just got back from his father’s funeral and hadn't updated the site. I regretted mentioning it.

Shoes off, we entered one of the empty halls. I asked Alam about prayer. He looked pained again, torn between the wish to refer my questions to a greater expert and a polite desire to help out. Tentatively he outlined the mechanics of prostration and offered the idea that prayer is about being thankful. What did that mean? He said that if I was a poor man with no shoes I could still thank God that I had feet, unlike (even) less fortunate people.

I asked if he had many visitors like me. He nodded. Perhaps Alam saw through the superficial matter of my ethnicity and social class, glimpsing the seeker within; but in half a dozen visits to the mosque in the weeks that followed, I would see few white people, and meet only one who spoke English as a first language. It seemed that the Islamic Centre of Brent has yet to be woven into the fabric of British life.

But some rituals are universal: “Would you like a cup of tea?” Alam asked.

In his office, a screen monitored numerous CCTV cameras. Many people believe they are not allowed to enter mosques, he said. He often sees them standing outside, hovering, then walking off. Sometimes, he goes out to explain that they are welcome to step in.

Alam took me downstairs and left me to watch lunchtime prayers, promising I would be left alone this time if I sat at the back. One man sat to the side, reciting the Koran, another lay asleep, snoring audibly. Then all at once people flooded in, muttered “Salaam aleikum” (peace be upon you) to nobody in particular and started prostrating anywhere. But after the call to prayer, with about 40 people in the room - most dark-skinned, none female - they shuffled forward to fill spaces on the prayer mat.

A young man with a long beard came to join me. A sweet-smelling Bosnian named Mo, he spoke imperfect English but managed to explain that, during prayer, worshippers look over one shoulder, then the next, to greet angels recording our good and bad deeds.

My heart sank. TJ Winter, a lecturer in theology at Cambridge and himself a convert, better known among Muslims as sheikh Abdal Hakim Murad, believes that Islam, once we have become familiar with it, is the most suitable faith for the British.

“Our doctrine could not be more straightforward," he says. “The most pure, exalted, uncompromising monotheism. A system of worship that requires no paraphernalia. Just the human creature and its Lord.” But Mo seemed to suggest there was more to it. I was
not sure that I believe in God. How could I believe I had an angel on each shoulder?

The point, Mo stressed, was to think always of judgment day. Alas, I didn’t believe in an afterlife, except in the sense that my body would one day be consumed by worms, so I would "become" a worm, and then be consumed by a bird, and so on.

Mo looked blank but recovered his poise by opening his Koran, and shortly afterwards actually offering to give it to me to keep.

I was overwhelmed: we had met only moments before. But he reduced my sense of gratitude a teeny bit by suggesting that I shower before reading this holy book.

I wasn’t fitting in as I’d hoped. The Muslims I met were friendly, but I felt detached, like a tourist. So one Saturday night I went back to Brent mosque. It was 10 in the evening, but Alam had particularly said this was the time to learn more about Islam.

I found a man brushing his teeth outside the prayer hall. He didn't look surprised to see a visitor at this hour, and took me to the kitchen, where a group stood drinking tea but said they were about to leave, and suggested I look for another group. So I walked round the building. Through a door, I heard voices. I knocked, and someone shouted: “This door is locked, brother.”

It was nice to be called brother. But not to be locked out and lost. In frustration, I climbed a fire escape and found an open door. Inside, shoes lay scattered everywhere - a promising sign. Pushing through, I came to some stairs and another door. I knocked, coughed, shouted hello - but no reply. I pushed through, only to find myself in… somebody’s bedroom. I dashed down the stairs, put my shoes on as fast as I could, and returned to the bottom of the fire escape.

I went back to the group in the kitchen, who gave me spiced tea and HobNobs, then led me to find the people I was looking for in the ladies’ prayer hall - not somewhere I’d dared to look.

Twelve men sat in a semicircle chanting Arabic hypnotically. They seemed delighted to see me.
The group was ethnically mixed, with members whose origins appeared to lie in Africa, the Indian subcontinent and southeastern Europe. Some wore clothes from those parts, others could have been dressed at Gap. In age they ranged from early twenties to late fifties. I was placed next to a young man I assumed to be Arab: he had dark hair, a wispy black beard and Islamic hat, and prefaced every utterance with “Alhamdullilah” (praise be to God). But in fact he was English and an ex-Catholic.

Joseph had told me that converts to Islam, particularly if they are cut off by friends and family, find themselves pressured by the established Muslim community to conform to standards that are not Islamic but cultural. Jemima Khan experienced something like this, adopting traditional Pakistani clothing after marrying Imran Khan. “I over-conformed in my eagerness to be accepted,” she said. I wondered if the same applied to my neighbour.

Over the next hour or so I joined the group’s meditative practice, using a bilingual text to chant the 99 most beautiful names of Allah, then the 201 names of the Prophet, and praise each one to the utmost - as much as there are stars in the sky and drops of rain. Nobody complained about me, a non-Muslim, doing this. By comparison, I remember being rebuked, gently, by my grandfather after taking communion though I’d not been baptised or confirmed. And that was in the easygoing Church of England.

While somebody lit incense, I confessed to my neighbour that I’d inadvertently joined the prayers at Regent's Park. He didn’t quite manage to suppress a broad grin, but recovered swiftly by saying “Alhamdulillah”. Allah would know if I’d done it with a good intention, he said.
The chanting ended. I was given fruit juice, dates and baklava, and introduced to several members of the group, who extended the eastern courtesy of touching their hearts as they shook my hand. I may have been feeling light-headed, but the room seemed to be charged with celebration and a strong sense of brotherhood - as if we were a sports team that had just won an important fixture.

When it came time to leave, one of my brothers called out: “Have a good evening!”
It was nearly one o'clock in the morning.

At home, I looked up the group I’d met and discovered that they were an order of Sufis. According to my books, Sufis aspire to detachment, patience and gratitude, using techniques that include chanting and prayer but also walking on hot coals, wearing a hair shirt, lying on a bed of nails and spinning on the spot for hours on end. This might be a promising area for somebody dabbling in Islam.

I found a group in the whirling dervish tradition and emailed a couple who host meetings at their home. A few days later I met Amina Jamil and her husband, Hilal, at a cafe, where they explained more. They were dressed in western clothes - no headscarf on Amina - but possessed what I can only describe as a kind of nobility, as if from another time.

Hilal explained that their Sufi sessions start with silent mantras. These included “There is no God but God,” to be repeated 100 times. Then "Allah" 300 times. "Then we ask for our faults to be forgiven, and we forgive others," he said. "We end with ‘Hu’, which is the divine pronoun."

"The work of Sufism is to embrace and discover the self," said Amina.

It gradually dawned on me that there was to be no whirling. After the mantras, the group reads a portion of poetry by Rumi, the 13th-century Persian mystic, theologian and founder of the dervishes. Amina handed me a copy of Rumi’s poetry, slightly worn at the corners. She wanted me to have it.

It was the second time I’d been offered a book that somebody loved. I mentioned Mo, the Bosnian, and my concerns about reading the Koran in translation. Hilal agreed that some translations were better than others. “But more important than the language is what you bring to the text. Do you have an open heart? If you are cynical, that is what you will find.”

Days later, at their smart mansion block, Hilal introduced me to six members of the group - mostly women. I didn't catch everybody's names, but they included an economist, two doctors and a psychiatrist. Some were born to Islam, but one was a former Catholic (another!). We sat in a circle on chairs and sofas. The women put scarves on their heads and we began the silent mantras.

After the poetry reading, the chanting began. I noticed that my own voice was deeper than others, but gradually lost my thoughts to the harmony. Then Hilal laid out prayer mats. I took my place beside the women. Prostrating mechanically was easy. But praising a God I didn't necessarily believe in? I kept in mind something Rumi wrote. “Stop trying to be the sun and become a speck,” I told myself. “Don’t pretend to be a candle, be a moth."

The following Saturday I went back to Brent mosque to find out more about the group I’d met briefly in the kitchen - Sufis from yet another order, whose worship relies heavily on music.
I was introduced to a Sudanese man wearing what the ignorant might describe as a long white dress, and a fur hat. This was the sheikh, or teacher. He was obviously held in great esteem because people stooped to kiss his hand. As we talked, another man started to sing ecstatically, while others tapped out an irresistible rhythm on the kitchen’s stainless-steel counter. Scarcely able to stop myself swaying to this hypnotic music, I asked the sheikh what it was about.

They’re praising Allah, he said. All Sufi groups do this. “You can go on British Airways and I can go on Pakistan Airways, but we are all going to the same place. Daily life makes you blind. This opens your eyes.” I told him I was trying to get a taste of Islam. He approved, said the only way to do that was to try it, and told me a story about the Prophet holding a jar and asking his followers what it contained. One guessed it was honey, as did a second. But a third actually dipped a finger in and tasted it: "Honey!"

I decided to try fasting, which isn’t only done at Ramadan: one of my Sufi brothers had told me he won't touch food or drink during daylight on Mondays and Thursdays - not even water.
I rose early. I still hadn’t mastered the routine for prayer but did my best, remembering what Al-Toma had told me about prayer: "It's not what other people think. It's between you and God."

I ate a bowl of yoghurt, a banana and a slice of toast - and glugged a litre of warm water. Went back to bed, rose again at seven to get my daughter ready for school, dropped her off, and returned for an hour of desultory typing.
But I wasn't thinking straight, and at exactly 9.42am I decided I would have to break the fast for a coffee. Managing somehow to restrain myself, I crept back to bed at 9.58 to doze for 90 minutes, and rose, for the third time that day, only marginally refreshed.

After lunchtime prayers, I needed help. My wife suggested I give up. But that wouldn’t do. I emailed Hilal to say I couldn't imagine how he copes doing this for a month. He sent back a poem on fasting by Rumi, and encouragement. "It's tough when you're doing it for the first time, and only for one day." (Apparently, it gets easier after four or five days.)

Shortly after, something magical happened. I stopped feeling hungry, tired and frustrated and became instead terrifically excited at the prospect of my first bite of food, my first sip of water. Just as, in the mosque, by the physical act of prayer I'd achieved an overpowering sense of humility, so by fasting I'd struggled for self-control and worked up a powerful feeling of gratitude.

It was true what the sheikh said: only by actually trying it would Islam make sense. Of course, dipping my toes in was never going to be the same as converting properly.

One convert who later gave up on Islam told me he’d been put off after being pressured, at his local mosque, to change his name and adopt Pakistani clothes. “There’s nothing un-Islamic about my name,” he said. “And as for my clothes, Islam is supposed to be a universal religion.”

He stopped going to mosque and, lacking any wider Muslim support network, gradually lost faith. He felt scared even to speak of this, he said, because the penalty for giving up on Islam, in some countries, is death. Others who converted and then quit Islam told me they should really have looked into it more beforehand. "I truly believed in Islam at the time," said one, "but the more I learnt, the more I disagreed with." Specifically, he felt uncomfortable about the different treatment of men and women in Islam.

I, too, was troubled by a number of questions. Will the Koran always seem alien to people who don't speak Arabic? At her north London offices, Sarah Joseph reassured me by stating that she'd not found it necessary to master Arabic (nor to change her name) though she takes care to research the meaning of key passages (and, for the record, she chooses to wear a headscarf). Trumping even the generosity of Mo and Amina, Joseph gave me a monumentally beautiful copy of the Koran, translated with commentary - and without suggesting that I wash before reading it.

Will mosques ever become, like some churches, places that ordinary Britons wander into for spiritual sustenance and quiet time?

I doubt it: mosques aren’t sacred spaces in quite the same way - what matters, so I’m told, is for Muslims to pray together, all pointing towards Mecca - and that could just as easily happen elsewhere. What's more, there’s the gender divide: if I brought my wife to the mosque we’d be separated - not something we’re used to, unless to change at swimming pools. But is separation so bad? After living in Pakistan for years, Khan concluded that "Islam is not a religion which subjugates women while elevating men". Who am I to argue?

I’ve found the practice of Islam surprisingly familiar - energising as a yoga class, meditative as Zen, worshipful as the most happy-clappy Anglicans. Did I ever feel uncomfortable? A bit, when I was propelled forward to join the prayers at Regent’s Park, and later when I travelled with Al-Toma to Iranian-owned TV studios in west London for a discussion show on converts, only to be left in the lobby because the producers considered me a security risk.

On my last visit to Brent mosque, I bumped into Mo, the Bosnian. He was delighted to see me, but wanted to know if my frequent reappearances meant I had accepted Islam. Unsure what to reply, I said I was still trying it out.

This seemed to satisfy him. I left the Islamic centre happy to have been accepted. But as I stood outside, my warm feelings were dashed. A neighbour - a white man in his forties - opened his window and shouted, hoping I would do him a favour and burn the mosque down.

Picture: John-Paul Flintoff sticks his head out during prayer at his local mosque in Brent. Photo: The Sunday Times
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Thursday, May 27, 2010

Shrine Ban
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By Abdul Latif Sahak, *Women Angry Over Shrine Ban* - IWPR Institute for War & Peace Reporting - London, UK
Tuesday, May 25, 2010/ARR Issue 362

Balkh women say ban on popular women-only day at holy site is latest in series of repressive measures.

Standing outside the gates of the imposing blue-tiled Hazrat-e Ali shrine, local resident Wazma is furious. A policeman has barred her way into the site - believed to be the burial place of the prophet Mohammad’s son-in-law Ali - citing a new municipal ban on visiting the shrine on Wednesdays, previously a women-only day.

“When the Taleban took any actions against women, the entire world would raise its voice, saying women’s rights have been violated,” she shouted. “But when [Balkh governor] Ata Mohammad Nur violates women rights, the entire world is silent.”

The last time she had been prevented from entering the shrine in the centre of Mazar-e-Sharif, she said, was 12 years ago when the Taleban-era governor, Abdol Manan Niazai, barred both men and women from visiting.

Women in the northern province have been angered by the ruling ending the traditional women-only Wednesdays, arguing that it is the latest in a series of repressive measures and one motivated by the prospect of commercial gain.

Although visiting shrines is sometimes frowned upon as an un-Islamic practice, it has been a traditional part of Afghan culture for many centuries and women embrace the rare opportunity to leave their homes and socialise.

In the past, thousands of women from across the province flocked to the mosque complex every Wednesday, considered a particularly auspicious day for women to visit holy places.

Another recent move has included installing policemen at the shrine who prevent women from walking in circles around the holy site. The only place such circling is allowed to take place, the ruling says, is during the pilgrimage to Mecca.

Critics say Ata Mohammad has violated the article of the constitution which states that “citizens of Afghanistan, including men and women, shall have equal rights and responsibilities before the law”.

Maghfarat Samimi, head of the Independent Human Rights Commission office in the northern provinces, said, “If the religious council and the local government authorities say women visiting the tomb of Ali is an un-Islamic act, then why did they….hoist the flag of the shrine at Nowruz (new year). Both of these actions are prohibited in Islam.

“Men are as Muslim as women. If [visiting a shrine] is unlawful for women, why do men practice it? I think this [municipal] order is a Talebanic act.”

On the recommendation of the Balkh religious council, Ata Mohammad had previously forbidden male singers from performing at wedding parties and banned women from going to male-owned tailor’s shops.

Critics accuse Ata Mohammad and Fariba Majid, the director of women’s affairs in Balkh province, of banning women from the shrine so that they will be forced to visit recreational parks outside the city.

One dedicated park for women, Bagh-i-Zanana, has been built by the ministry of women’s affairs and funded by the government and the Swedish and German Provincial Reconstruction Teams, PRT. The women’s affairs provincial department collects the rents of eight shops and a restaurant which operate in the park.

Mazar-e-Sharif resident Fariba said that officials would benefit from the ban, as women would be forced to spend their money in both the women’s park and another recreational centre, the Nur park in the Khaled Bin Walid area of the city.

“After this order has been issued, many women will visit those parks and the [municipality] will make a lot of money,” she said.

Munir Ahmad Farhad, spokesman for the Balkh governor, denied the accusations, “This order was suggested to the governor’s office by the religious scholars’ council and the provincial council and the decision was made after comprehensive debate.”

Farhad said that the numbers of women gathering every Wednesday were creating traffic problems and disturbing prayers at the shrine. He stressed that the governor had no personal interests in issuing the order.

Director of women affairs Majid said that the ban had been suggested jointly by her department and the religious scholars’ council.

Women visiting the shrine both disrupted traffic in the city and disturbed the male population, she said, adding, “Women’s rights have not been harmed with this order. They are still free to go to recreational areas.”

But local resident Shekiba, standing near the gate of the shrine, said that it was men who harassed women in the shrine, “The director of women affairs has tried to hide the sun with two fingers in order to make the governor happy. The truth is that women’s rights have been violated and it is women who are bothered by men using bad language.”

Mawlawi Abdorrahman, a deputy of the scholars’ council of Balkh province, said that the women’s Wednesday visits were a sin in Islam.

Not only did these visits give foreigners the opportunity to take photographs of Afghan women and publish them abroad, he said, but the women themselves disgraced the holy site by socialising rather than praying. That was why the scholars’ council discussed the issue with the governor of Balkh and he accepted it. “The governor always considers our demands,” he said.

Outside the shrine, Mazar-e-Sharif resident Fatima, who said she had studied religious education in Iran, argued that the ban itself was un-Islamic. “Islam is a religion which has given equal rights of worshipping to men and women and for this reason millions of women go on the haj [pilgrimage to Mecca] every year,” she said.

“What kind of an Islamic order is it that men are allowed but women are not allowed to go to a shrine?”

Freshta, a local high school student, said the Wednesday visits created a rare opportunity for women to meet and enjoy themselves. “I will never be able to meet my friends after this again, because girls cannot go to each other’s houses freely like men,” she said.

Pedlars around the shrine are also upset about the order.

Nafas Gol sat with a basket of 100 home-made bolanis, Afghan pancakes filled with potato and onion. With four daughters and a small son at home, she said this was her only source of income.

“My bolanis would sell better on Wednesdays than on other days because many women would come to the shrine. I made more in that one day than in the rest of the week. I do not know what to do now,” she said.

Abdul Latif Sahak is an IWPR-trained reporter in Balkh province.

[Picture: Detail of the Decoration of the Shrine. Photo: Wiki]
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Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Full Of Love
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By Irfan Al-Alawi, *Another Saint of the Ba'Alawi family, the Jewel of Malaysia, leaves us* - Center for Islamic Pluralism - Washington, DC, USA
Saturday, May 15, 2010

Habib Ali bin Jaafar al-Aydrus of Batu Pahat, Johor

"From amongst the multitude, God graciously appoints some selected people as His friends to preach His commandments for the benefit of mankind. Their one greatest qualification is that they renounce the wealth and pleasures of the world and dedicate their lives to the love, devotion and service of God and humanity. When others feel the pinch of sorrows and pain, they don't. When the world would have no such 'awliyya' then the Day of Qayamat would dawn upon it."
– Syed Ali bin Usman Al Hajveri

As another of the awliyya passes away, only 40 days have elapsed since Al-Habib 'Abd al-Qadir al-Saqqaf (Allah be pleased with them) returned to his Lord, and the world is left in further darkness.

The famous Wadi Hasan Mosque in Batu Pahat, Johor Dar al-Ta'zim, Malaysia, where Habib Ali al-Aydrus (Allah be pleased with him) was the Imam, cries for him today.

He was a saint of great stature and was one of the last of his generation, and possibly the last in Malaysia .

Habib Ali al-Aydrus passed away on Thursday 29th Jamadi Al Awwal 1431 [13th May 2010] at 5:10pm at his house, aged 97.

Originally from Yemen, he settled himself in this fairly remote part of the state of Johor, but that did not stop people flocking to him from around the world.

Habib Ali was well-known among the great Sufi masters of the Far East and the Arab world. Regular visitors such as my Sheikhs, the renowned scholar of Mecca, Sayyid Muhammad bin Alawi al-Maliki, Habib Zain ibn Sumeit, Habib Hasan bin Abdullah As Syathiri, Habib 'Abd al-Qadir al-Saqqaf and various other Habaib had benefited from this exemplar among the awliyya of Allah.

He had a great maqam (rank) and he certainly is not only a jewel in the crown of Batu Pahat, but of a much bigger wilayat (area). We can only speculate on his role in the unseen realm.

Habib Ali was a very virtuous man whose prayers were never rejected by Allah. Even during his old age, he would spend all his time welcoming guests, day and night, into his humble house. He would assign a week to himself, to spend in ibadat (prayers), and leave the following week to receive guests.

He preferred for people not to look at him and despite having poor vision could tell if anyone was secretly watching him. The room that he used to sleep in was not comfortable but he did not seem to care about comfort.

Habib Ali would attend to people's requests for healing, but because of old age stopped doing so four years ago. People would be asked to write down their needs on a piece of paper which was to be pasted face down on water bottles. There were times when Habib Ali would call Umi Khatijah, his daughter, to help him read some illegible handwriting, but he covered up the paper with his hands and only revealed the few words that he could not read. Habib Ali would remind Umi that 'people trusted me with their personal problems, not you. This is amanah (trust) for me to keep.'

Habib Ali used to recite Yaseen and al-Mulk after Fajr and Maghrib prayers and al-Waqi'ah after Asar. But when he became older, he did not recite the Qur'an as much due to poor vision and memory, yet he would continually perform his Awarad and Wird (Prophetic invocations) day and night, as he did not sleep much.

When Habib Ali was 36 years old, his wife, Sharifah Alawiyah passed away. When people asked him to remarry, he said, 'even before my wife died I had already made a pledge that I would not marry again, so I wish to keep to my words.'

Habib Ali's father, Al Habib Ja'far al-Aydrus, was one of the great and noble men acknowledged by Allah, famous all over the world, and named as one of the connoisseurs in Siddiqiyyatil Qubra.

Habib Ali was very humble and always kept his head bent down with politeness; he was a man with a gentle voice and full of love. The light on his face was like a dazzling diamond in the darkness of the night. Indeed, a friend of Allah is one who is humble and always loves to serve the poor, just like the Prophet (Sallallahu alaihi wa Sallam). He was a mercy to all who knew him and all who may not be aware of his presence.

May Allah bless Habib Ali's soul.

Al-Fatih'a.

"Great is that bewildered youth whose Lord has extinguished his name, and raised him up,
Time passes and he knows not its reckoning as he is made to quaff the wine."
Irfan Al Alawi
Servant of The Seekers of Sacred Knowledge
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Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Cherry Trees Blossoming
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By Nicholas Birch, *Turkish Theological Schools Flourishing as Restrictions Relax on Religious Expression* - EurasiaNet - NY, USA
Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Skull-caps on their heads, five students aged between 18 and 40 hunch over a text in Arabic in the southeastern Turkish town Norşin. In front of them, legs folded like a yogi, a copy of the same leather-bound book open on a low wooden lectern, an elderly teacher declaims in sing-song Kurdish.

Strictly speaking, this gathering is forbidden under Turkish law. But since the Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002, restrictions on religious expression have relaxed slightly. This easing has opened the way for a minor local renaissance in Turkey of one of the Muslim world's oldest institutions -- the medrese, or theological school.

For half a century after 1880, the village of Norşin was arguably the most important centre of religious learning in Kurdish areas of what is now Turkey and Iraq. Students called it the Al-Azhar of the East, after Cairo's famous university, and came from hundreds of miles away to attend.But the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923 dealt Norşin a double blow. First, medrese were closed in the name of unified, state-run education. Then, in 1925, unnerved by a major Kurdish revolt led by the leader of a religious brotherhood, Turkey's new leaders clamped down on Sufi lodges too.

A member of the same, influential Nakshibendi brotherhood as the rebel leader, Norsin's sheikh had nothing to do with the rebellion. It didn't stop him being sent into internal exile, along with his family. By the late 1970s, after decades spent in a semi-clandestine existence, Norsin's medrese had closed its doors.

Three decades on, the village has three medrese capable of educating 60 students at any one time. Construction on a fourth is nearing completion, as Norşin moves to take advantage of a re-awakening of interest that has seen theological schools across the region become more active.

"Radical Islam collapsed because it was a product of the Cold War," said Mufit Yuksel, a prominent sociologist of Islam who studied at Norşin. "Today there is a return to the traditional Islam symbolized by Norşin. The whole Islamic world has understood that religion is a tradition, not an ideology.

"While Norsin's renaissance dates back to the late 1980s, the AKP, led by a politician, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, seems more aware than earlier governments of its potential symbolic power, both for the religious-minded and for Kurds. Erdogan in his youth was close to an Istanbul branch of the Nakshibendi.

Last August, as the government launched a concerted effort to end a 25-year Kurdish rebellion, President Abdullah Gul traveled to the town, which is still officially known as Güroymak. But during the visit Gul called it by its Kurdish (or, as at least one etymologist mischievously suggested, Armenian) name of Norşin. It marked the first time since the Turkification of place names began in the 1930s that a senior official had publicly preferred a non-Turkish name. Many observers interpreted the move as being part of a policy aimed at undermining former Marxist Kurdish rebels by emphasizing Turkish-Kurdish Islamic brotherhood.

As Gul spoke, Turkish workmen paid for by Ankara, continued restoration work on the tomb of the founder of the Turkish branch of the Nakshibendi sect in the Syrian capital of Damascus.

"Sayyid Qutb is losing ground to... Mevlana," says Kurdish Islamist intellectual Serdar Bulent Yilmaz, referring to the Egyptian-born founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, a 20th century political Islamist movement, and the 13th century Sufi mystic and poet who died in the Turkish city of Konya. "Islam is supposed to go beyond the national, but Turkey's Muslims are rediscovering local symbols and local identity."

In Norsin itself, members of the family that has provided sheikhs for the local Sufi brotherhood for over 150 years take a harder-nosed view of their village's sudden return to prominence, as well as the rejuvenation of its medrese.

In the past, said Baha Mutlu, nephew of the current family head, Norşin used to boast of educating future religious teachers "knowledgeable in the twelve sciences," a term used to describe everything from natural philosophy through logic to shar’ia, or religious law. Today, few students get beyond learning Arabic and a good grounding in the Koran."

The Republican period brought great trauma to the functioning of medrese," Mutlu explains. "With the risk of a military police raid at any moment, you have to pare the syllabus down, cut it down to the bare minimum.”

While older Kurds still remain attached to the religion of their forefathers, the world view of younger generations has been affected both by obligatory secular education and the charisma of gun-toting Marxists in the mountains. In his early 50s now, Mutlu as a child went to the village primary school in the morning and the medrese in the afternoon. He can read Ottoman, an Arabic- and Farsi-tinged form of Turkish that is written in Arabic script as easily as he can read modern Turkish.

His nephew Ruknettin Mutlu, who studied public administration at university and now teaches democracy and human rights at the high school just down the hill from Norşin, is much more at home in modern Turkish. "Our uncle is not a sheikh in the traditional sense of the word," says Ruknettin's older brother Omer Mutlu, referring to the need for new Nakshibendi sheikhs to receive authorization from their superiors before beginning to practice. "Norşin is an institution and he took up leadership of it to tide things over. If he had not, it would have disappeared for ever."

Sitting outside Norşin's original medrese building, a simple white turban - or pushi - on his head, Sheikh Nurettin has no cause for complaint. He gestures behind him at cherry trees blossoming early after an unusually mild winter. "This past winter has been so beautiful that we have forgotten the bitter winters of the past," he says.

Five more students filed past him on their way to Arabic lessons with the elderly professor, cross-legged behind his lectern.

They could get a similar education at one of Turkey's official religious schools. But Turkey's official religious schools don't teach Kurdish. Nor, unlike Norşin, have they produced arguably the most important Islamic thinker in 20th century Turkish history, Said-i Nursi, rebellious Kurd in his youth, Koran exegete in his prime, revered by millions as a near-saint after his death.

"Everybody who comes here dreams of being the new Said," says Sheikh Nurettin.

EurasiaNet Editor's note: Nicolas Birch specializes in Turkey, Iran and the Middle East.

[Picture: Said Nurşi. Photo: Wiki.]
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Monday, May 24, 2010

The Potential To Act
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By Dr. Jonathan N. C. Hill, *Sufism in Northern Nigeria: A Force for Counter-Radicalization?* - Strategic Studies Institute - Carlisle, PA, USA
Monday, May 17, 2010

Sufism in Northern Nigeria: A Force for Counter-Radicalization

Added May 17, 2010
Type: Monograph
68 Pages
Download it Now
Cost: Free

Brief Synopsis

In light of the ongoing threats issued by al-Qaeda (AQ) against the United States and its allies, the need to prevent the radicalization of young Muslim men and women remains as pressing as ever, and perhaps nowhere is this task more urgent than in the countries of West Africa.

The global expanse of the ongoing war on terror places these territories in the frontline. With large Muslim populations that have hitherto remained mostly impervious to the advances of Islamism, the challenge now confronting the Nigerian government and the international community is ensuring that this remains the case. But in recent months, Islamist groups have been highly active in the region.

The aim of this monograph is to assess the potential of Nigeria’s Sufi Brotherhoods to act, both individually and collectively, as a force for counter-radicalization, to prevent young people from joining Islamist groups.

About the Author

Dr. Jonathan N. C. Hill is a lecturer in the Defence Studies Department at King’s College, London, United Kingdom, based at the Joint Services Command and Staff College. He has provided academic support to both the British Peace Support Team (BPST) in South Africa and the British Defence Advisory Team (BDAT) in Nigeria.

Dr. Hill has published widely on issues of African security. His most recent book, Identity in Algerian Politics: The Legacy of Colonial Rule, was released by Lynne Rienner Publishers in June 2009. He is currently working on a new book, a clutch of articles on Algeria and Nigeria.

Dr. Hill holds a Ph.D. in postcolonial politics from the University of Wales, Aberystywth, United Kingdom.
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Sunday, May 23, 2010

Positive Roles
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By Staff Reporter, *Oxford hosts Sheikh Zayed Book Award annual lecture* - Middle East Online - London, UK
Saturday, May 15, 2010

Award-winning authors Ammar Ali Hasan and Qais Sedki give talks at Oxford University

Oxford, England: The Middle East Centre at Oxford University hosted Wednesday two lectures organized jointly with the UAE's Sheikh Zayed Book Award, presented by Egyptian Dr. Ammar Ali Hassan and Emirati Qais Sedki.

Hassan had won the Award's "Best Contribution to the Development of Nations" 2010 prize for his book "The Political Establishment of Sufism in Egypt", while Sedki was awarded the top prize for "Children's Literature" for his manga (graphic novel) "Gold Ring".

The event was moderated by Dr. Eugene Rogan, Director of the Middle East Centre, who underscored the important role played by the Award through the last four sessions and hailed the additions given by the prize-winning books to various fields of knowledge.

Hassan's talk focused on how the research of his book was compiled and the various ways it was met following publication. The Award had praised the book as "a remarkable addition" to Muslim Sufism studies.

The author shed light on some of the positive roles played by Sufism in Egyptian civil society since the second century of the Islamic calendar and up to today.

Meanwhile, Emirati author Sedki described the process of writing and publishing his original children's book, whose Arabic text was illustrated with Japanese drawings.

Sedki also discussed possible ways of prompting children's books in the Middle East, a task he stressed relies on many factors that are beyond the control of good authors.

But Sedki also stressed the need for authors and publisher to make books more entertaining for children and easier to read.

The event is the second lecture of such cooperation between the Award and Oxford University.
Rashed Saleh Al-Oraimi, General Secretary of the Award, praised the welcome and support received at Oxford University.

The event was attended by Mohhamed Al Attaiba, the Charge D'Affaires at the UAE Embassy to London, and other figures, publishers and members of the press.

The Award had previously organised similar events in Cairo, Kuwait, Beirut, New York, Los Angeles, Frankfurt amongst other cities.

Picture: (L-R): Eugene Rogan, Qais Sedki and Ammar Ali Hassan. Photo: MEO
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Saturday, May 22, 2010

Over The Land
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By Yoginder Sikand, *Muslim-Hindu Relations in Jammu Province – Part 3* - TwoCirles.net - Cambridge, MA, USA
Friday, May 14, 2010

"T" is an Islamic scholar belonging to the Barelvi maslak and is the imam of a mosque near Jammu.

I first met him in his simple, sparsely furnished room adjacent to the mosque, where he was surrounded by a group of Muslim peasants.

‘Killing an innocent Hindu just because he isn’t a Muslim is certainly not a jihad’, he tells me in response to my query about what he feels about the ongoing violence in Kashmir.

He explains that in a legitimate Islamic jihad non-combatant non-Muslims must not be harmed. Rather, he says, they must be protected. Yet, he laments, many of those who claim to be waging a jihad in Kashmir do not abide by this basic Islamic principle. He recounts the case of a fellow Barelvi maulana who made this point at a public meeting and was later threatened with death by activists from the dreaded Lashkar-i Tayyeba.

T is loathe to discuss politics. ‘I am a religious man’, he says, but he does insist that violence is not the way to solve the Kashmir issue. Rather than directly discuss Kashmiri politics, he prefers to dwell on what he believes is the correct Islamic notion of jihad. He argues that physical violence for the defence of Islam, when Islam or its adherents are under threat, is legitimate, but war for worldly advancement, for land or for power, is not. He tells me that the conflict in Kashmir is simply over the land—both India and Pakistan want to grab it, and they are not really concerned about the people as such—and hence it is not a real jihad.

He does not hesitate to condemn the excesses of both the Indian armed forces and certain Pakistan-based militant groups. He recounts cases of killings of innocents by both, describing their actions as unambiguously ‘anti-Islamic’. He fears that such violence might exacerbate in the future, with rival Islamic groups, representing different sectarian formations, fighting each other. ‘The gun culture has become so deeply ingrained that, who knows, Kashmir might go the Pakistan or Afghanistan way, with Shi‘as and Sunnis and Wahhabis training their guns on each other’.

As a traditional Islamic scholar, T’s interaction with the local Hindus is somewhat limited. Yet, he insists on the need for harmonious relations with the Hindus, and laments that in the course of the ongoing violence in Kashmir, Hindu-Muslim relations have drastically deteriorated. Yet, he believes that ‘ordinary’ Hindus and Muslims simply want to live in peace and carry on with their lives. He tells me about his experiences of living in a largely Hindu town, where there are few Muslims. In the years that he has lived not once was he targeted by the local Hindus or made to feel unsafe. ‘Given what has been happening in Kashmir’, he says, ‘they might have been expected to hate me, to create trouble for me, but that wasn’t the case. In fact, they treat me with respect’.

* * *

H is a Muslim college student in Jammu. His family are, as he puts it, ‘staunch Barelvis’, and he counts himself as an ardent Barelvi as well. He has not had a formal Islamic education, but through books and personal meetings with scholars associated with a particular Barelvi organization he has received a fairly good knowledge of his faith.

We talk about this Barelvi organization, and he tells me about how, in its own way, it is trying to promote peace in Kashmir. The organization has arranged numerous public meetings in different parts of Jammu and Kashmir, where Barelvi ‘ulama, including many from other parts of India, deliver lectures on various aspects of the Prophet’s life and teachings. The focus of these lectures is often on social issues, particularly issues of contemporary concern. H names a number of such issues, from female infanticide and dowry to inter-communal amity and the need for peace. ‘We cannot directly speak out the militants or they will kill us’, he says. ‘So we hold out the model of the Prophet as a way to counter their propaganda’.

H insists that Islam, as he sees it, and peace between the different communities, are indivisible. When the Prophet was born, his mother, Amina, saw angels planting white flags, symbolising peace, he tells me. Hence, Muslims must struggle for peace and against the misuse of religion to promote violence against innocent people. One of the meanings of ‘Islam’ in Arabic is peace, he notes, but adds that this does not mean a passive acceptance of things as they are, but, rather, also struggling, through morally justifiable means, for an end to all forms of oppression. This includes working for the rights of non-Muslims as well. To illustrate the point he tells me the story of a property dispute between a Muslim and a non-Muslim. They appeared before the Prophet, who decided in favour of the latter, although the Muslim had expected that he would rule in his favour simply because he was a Muslim. ‘The Prophet stressed the rights of one’s neighbours, and these include non-Muslims, and said that he who gives unnecessary sorrow to his neighbour would go to hell’, H says gravely.

H stresses the importance of personal behaviour and morality, arguing that calls for jihad and an Islamic state are meaningless if their advocates do not practise genuine spirituality themselves. ‘Your behaviour with others should be such that people think that it is because of Islam that you are good, not, as now, that you are bad because of Islam’, he says. He critiques certain radical Islamist groups in Kashmir, whom he describes as ‘Wahhabis’ and who, he says, are really political and not religious outfits, although they assume an ‘Islamic’ garb. ‘They walk in the path of money, not of Islam’, he says. In the name of jihad, he laments, ‘they have finished us off’. In contrast to their actions, he says, the ‘real jihad’ is to ‘develop a proper Islamic character and to convey the message of Islam to others’.
He cites the example of the widely revered Sufi saint, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti of Ajmer, as a ‘true mujahid’. Through his message of love and peace, he says, scores of people were attracted to Islam. In contrast to the Khwaja, the activities of several radical Islamist outfits have only succeeded in further repelling non-Muslims from Islam, as a result of which they see Muslims as ‘terrorists’. Rather than their activities being a genuine jihad, they are, he says, a ‘great strife’ or fitna, that has no legitimacy in Islam at all.

Like most other Muslims, H believes that Islam alone is the way to salvation, but, at the same time, he insists that Islamic missionary work has no room for violence. Rather, he argues that it is only through promoting love and peace that others can be receptive to the message of Islam, adding that this is precisely what the Prophet also sought to do. Non-Muslims are free to accept or reject Islam, and in no case should they be forced to do so.

H tells me that he has ‘nothing to do with politics’, but he believes that a solution to the issue of Kashmir must have the consent of all the various communities in the state. Perhaps, he says, joint rule by India and Pakistan for a few years is a possible solution. He thinks that many Kashmiris might prefer independence, rather than being ruled by Delhi or Islamabad, but says that this option is not without its dangers. In an independent Kashmir, he warns, there is a likelihood of civil war breaking out and sectarian violence spearheaded by ‘Wahhabis’, whom he describes, echoing the views of many other Barelvi scholars, as ‘blasphemers against the Prophet’ (gustakh-i rasul), accusing them of being imperialist creations in order to set Muslims against each other.

* * *
R is a practising Sufi, and is the custodian of a large dargah in Jammu. Like many other Barelvi scholars in Jammu, he, too, thinks that the Kashmir issue is political, and not religious as such.

‘No religion, properly interpreted, allows for killing innocent people’, R explains as I settle down on the mattress on the floor of his room, declining a chair that he offers me. In Islam, he tells me, one is allowed to take to arms only in self-defence, when one’s life or faith are under threat. Prior to the outbreak of the militant movement, the Kashmiri Muslims enjoyed freedom of both, he says and pauses, leaving me free to draw my own conclusion. ‘Yes, there have been human rights violations by the armed forces as well’, he admits when I point this out, ‘but the trouble started with the militants, so it’s not entirely the fault of the army’.

R is decidedly opposed to the Islamists, including the Lashkar-i Tayyeba and the Jama‘at-i Islami, groups whom he describes as ‘Wahhabis’. He denies that they are Islamic at all, and says that their demand for an Islamic state in Kashmir is untenable.
‘If Muslims demand an Islamic state in Kashmir of the sort that the Wahhabis want’, he says, ‘how can one deny Hindu groups the same right in India?’. He points out that the ‘Wahhabis’ and the Hindu right-wing feed on each other, both being ‘thoroughly anti-religious’ while claiming to be the greatest defenders of their respective faiths and communities. He also tells me that the Islamist militants in Kashmir have no concern about the grave consequences Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan or becoming independent might have for the Muslims living in the rest of India, who, he says, number 14 times the Kashmiri Muslim population. It is bound to lead to a strengthening of right-wing Hindu forces, he points out, who might wreak further havoc on the Indian Muslims.

R recognises that the actions of the militants has had a tremendously negative impact on non-Muslim perceptions of Islam and its adherents. ‘Ordinary people cannot distinguish us from the Wahhabis and so they now think that all Muslims are terrorists’, he says in despair. Yet, despite the what he calls the relentless ‘un-Islamic’ propaganda of ‘Wahhabi’ groups, he believes that the majority of the Kashmiri Muslims continue to deeply revere the Sufis. The ‘Wahhabis’ recognise this, and that is why, he claims, they do not openly reveal their beliefs or preach their views, such as their opposition to Sufism and the cults associated with their shrines. Were they to reveal their true beliefs, he says, they would be stiffly opposed by the Kashmiri Muslims themselves.

As R sees it, the ‘Wahhabi’ militants lack true piety, despite their claims of being true mujahids. Several of them are involved in militancy just to make money, he says. And some of them, particularly the leaders of militant groups in Pakistan, have raked in millions in the name of jihad, he assures me. ‘Their politics are totally against the Qur’an and the traditions of the Prophet. They say, no matter what happens, even if innocent people are raped or killed, we want to set up our own government. Surely, the Prophet did not act in this way!’. He refers to Pakistan as an example of a failed state, despite its claims of being a model Islamic country. ‘You can’t impose an Islamic system by force like that’, he says.

It is not easy for people like him to take on the militants directly, says R. Some, including moderate Muslim leaders (he cites the late Qazi Nisar, the Mirwaiz of south Kashmir as an example), who dared to do so have even paid for this with their lives. Rather, R says, he tries to do this indirectly, by telling Muslims about the Prophet and the Sufis and their message of love and tolerance and the meaning of the ‘true jihad’. ‘I point out that we must follow the Prophet alone in all matters, and behave as he did’, he explains. ‘That means that we must work for love and peace. That is precisely what the Sufis, who brought Islam to Kashmir, did, and we should walk in their path’.

R insists on the need for Muslim scholars to reach out to people of other communities. ‘We live in a multi-religious society and so must have good relations with each other. It is only through love and in a peaceful environment that we can disabuse others of the misunderstandings that they have of Islam’, he says. He admits the need for organised work for promoting inter-religious harmony, noting that hardly any efforts have been made in this regard in Jammu. ‘Each of us seems to obsessed with our own communities that we just do not think beyond’, he bemoans.

* * *

A is a Muslim school teacher from a village near Kishtwar, in the mountainous Doda district. I met him one afternoon at a tea stall outside the Jami‘a mosque in the largely Muslim locality of Mohalla Khatikan in Jammu. He looked plainly tired and harried as he sipped his tea and read out a newspaper story about the killing of a young man in Doda. Apparently, the youth had been kidnapped by a group of militants belonging to the dreaded Deobandi Harkat ul-Mujahidin, who kept him with them for a month. He was then killed by them because he had opposed the marriage of his relative with a Harkat militant.

‘We simply cannot do anything because we are poor people’, A says with an immense sigh. ‘On the one hand the army terrorises us, and on the other hand the militants. We can’t afford to speak up against either of the two’.

It is not just the Hindus who were being targeted by the militants, he explains. In fact, most of those killed in his area, by both the militants and the army, are Muslims. ‘And that means’, he declares emphatically, ‘that this is not a jihad at all’. ‘In a true jihad’, he says, ‘innocents cannot be targeted, women cannot be raped, you cannot steal other’s money or property, but this is precisely what is happening’.

A’s father is said to have been a practising Sufi, and A has inherited from him a passionate commitment to the Sufi way. This explains his strident opposition to the Islamist militants. ‘I used to firmly support the cause of Kashmiri independence’, he tells me, ‘but seeing what these so-called mujahids have done, murdering and looting in God’s name, I have come to the firm conclusion that it is best for us to be with India’.
‘If ever Kashmir becomes independent or joins Pakistan we will descend into civil war’, he warns. Denouncing Islamist radicals, he argues, ‘They claim to be working for an Islamic state, but that’s all hot air. We’ve seen what their agenda is from their actions’. And this includes what he sees as the Islamists’ fierce hostility to Sufism, or what A defines as ‘true’ Islam.
‘Although the militants don’t openly say so for fear of losing public support, we know that they see Sufism as un-Islamic and regard us as little better than polytheists. How can we trust or support such people?’, he asks.

As a devout Muslim, A sees as his primary task the mission of tabligh or communicating the message of Islam to others. That, he says, was the Prophet’s mission in life, not the capture of political power. The best and most effective way to convey Islam to others, he says, is through one’s own character. ‘If people see how noble and kind you are because you are a good Muslim, they would automatically be attracted to the faith’, he argues.
He sees the militants as not only having no interest whatsoever in tabligh and, in fact, as actually working to defeat all possibilities for attracting others to Islam. ‘The militants have created such a hatred in the minds of the Hindus here about Islam that no Hindu would at all be interested in, leave alone attracted to, Islam’, he rues.
He refers to Islamist ideologues and militant activists as endlessly proclaiming that Islam has the answer to all the ills of humankind, but then hurriedly adds that obviously no Hindu would ever accept this claim since the militants themselves refuse to act according to Islamic principles.
‘The Hindus answer, and rightly so, that all these wonderful things about Islam should first be practised by the militants themselves, and only then would they care to lend a ear to their propaganda’, he says.

Part 3; to be continued at this link
[Picture: Peer Baba Shrine. Photo: Official Web site of district Jammu.]
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Friday, May 21, 2010

Busy With The Burqa
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By Mohammed Al Shafey, *The Paris-Based Imam who Backs the Burqa Ban* - Asharq Al-Awsat - London, UK
Friday, May 14, 2010

London:  In light of the French government's fight to outlaw the burqa and niqab, French Imam Hassen Chalghoumi, who is a strong critic of full-face veiling, agreed to speak to Asharq Al-Awsat in a telephone interview about this controversial issue.

Chalghoumi believes that the tradition of wearing the niqab is very dangerous to the Islamic religion, as this is something that distorts the position of Muslim women in society. Chalghoumi, who is the Imam of the Drancy Mosque in Seine-Saint-Denis near Paris told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Quran does not call for Muslim women to wear the niqab, and he said that women who want to completely veil their faces should go to the tribal areas of Pakistan or Afghanistan where wearing the niqab is tradition.

Sheikh Chalghoumi is married to a French-Tunisian who wears the hijab [headscarf] rather than the niqab, and they have 5 children together.

Sheikh Chalghoumi is a vocal advocate of banning full-face veiling, and he has said that he supports French President Sarkozy's draft law to ban the burqa. Chalghoumi is considered to be part of a new generation of modern and moderate imams who strongly advocate a moderate interpretation of Islam. Chalghoumi has faced harsh criticism for his views, and he is currently living in a state of fear and anxiety after receiving death threats from Islamic extremists.

The Tunisian Imam who was born in Tunis in 1972 and immigrated to France in 1996 was even recently forced to flee his own mosque under police escort after being attacked by the congregation after airing his views. Muslims in Drancy have called for Chalghoumi to be removed from his post as the Imam of the Drancy Mosque for his controversial views and statements. For his part, Chalghoumi told Asharq Al-Awsat that there is a large "silent majority" who support him and his views.

For the past 10 years, Sheikh Chalghoumi, along with prominent Arab, Muslim, Jewish, and Christian figures, has been promoting the principles of coexistence, and denouncing racism, extremism, and fanaticism.

The following is the text of the interview:

[Asharq Al-Awsat] What do you think of the sanctions that were decided recently, known as the "niqab sanctions," starting with the fining of a French lady who was wearing a niqab while driving her car, and the fining of a husband if he forces his wife to wear a niqab?

[Chalghoumi] Look at the words of Almighty God when He commanded that Muslims should lower their gaze [in the face of a woman]. This means that the niqab was not widespread when the Koran revelation came to the graceful Prophet. It was not prevalent at that time and this is why Almighty God commanded that the believers should lower their gaze. Regrettably, what happens is that women attract men's gaze by wearing the niqab. In other words, women seeking to avoid what is religiously forbidden have found themselves in a worse position. As is known in religion, a woman's face and hands are not meant to be covered.

We notice backwardness in the Middle East today in terms of education and knowledge because women's progress is impeded. As far as I am concerned, wearing a niqab is no different from the burying of newborn female babies alive in the jahiliyah [pre-Islamic era in Arabia]. If a woman is good, her situation will be good and her children will be good.

The niqab conveys an image of our men as lustful and sex obsessed. This is not true. Muslim men are wise, reliable, proud, and courageous. We do not call for showing off but for moderation and a middle-of-the-road approach.

The sanctions in question were simple in being 22 euros for the lady because she was wearing the niqab while driving a car. She was fined because she could not have a clear field of vision. In other words, she could have put herself or others in danger on a public road. This means that lives are threatened on the road because of the niqab the lady was wearing and that obstructed her vision. She wanted to exonerate herself and hired a lawyer to defend her.

Meanwhile, the prosecutor found out that her husband is married to three other women, in addition to her. She is aware of this and agrees to it. This means that her husband married this French lady legally and three others outside the provisions of the positive [secular rather than Shariaa] law that does not accept marriage with several wives. The other disaster is that they are getting social security help from the state.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] How would you explain the escalation of the situation and the ban on niqab in most European countries, almost simultaneously?

[Chalghoumi] The sight of a Muslim lady clad in all black garments is ugly and scary. Today, we are engaged in dialogue and discussions. I receive threats because I am against the niqab. In the fifties, French women fought to have the right to vote in elections and to have a prestigious place in society. This means that in the fifties French women wanted their voices to be heard in society, while Muslim women in 2010 want to wear the niqab. Is this reasonable?

Wearing the niqab does not look nice. It transgresses on generally accepted concepts, and annoys the French. Moreover the niqab conveys a distorted idea about our graceful religion. In other words, the niqab humiliates Muslim women, limits their freedom, and prevents their natural role in social life. We should ask the niqab-wearing ladies a question: Is the face not a person's identity? It is not fair to reduce the 15-century-old graceful Islamic religion to a black piece of cloth, a "black rag." Our religion is more important than this. Islam has nothing to do with the niqab. Like Europe, Islam calls for the upholding of values and for being kind to others.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] How would you comment on your years-long preaching to Europe's Muslims to abide by prevailing European laws and norms?

[Chalghoumi] When Islam arrived 14 centuries ago, it blended in with previous civilizations and laws in terms of clothes, garments, and prevailing laws. We must respect the laws of the European countries where we have been living, since we arrived there with a pact and a covenant that we must abide by and not transgress. How can we show the grace and fairness of our holy religion if we do not show commitment to prevailing laws?

Because our Prophet Muhammad was honest and sincere and kind to others, we must abide by, and be committed to, laws. We must not deceive others, be hypocrites, or lie to people in Europe under the claim that the Europeans are unbelievers whose property it is religiously permissible to get, as the fatwas issued by fundamentalists claim. We seek refuge in God from any sin, and we pray to God to protect us, because Islam is the religion of right, justice, equality, and mercy. It is not the religion of the takfiriyin [those who hold other Muslims to be infidels] and certain Salafi movements that uphold that it is religiously permissible to take the unbelievers' property. They adhere to the religion's commandments selectively and whimsically.

Look at France's jails. Regrettably, they harbor many sons of Muslims. I can affirm to Asharq Al-Awsat that, according to French statistics, 60 percent of jail inmates are sons of Muslims. The statistics do not mention that they are Muslims but provide their ethnic origins. According to official figures, 300 of them commit suicide each year, while dozens of others deviate from the serious path of the graceful religion and get involved in drugs, moral decadence, and terrorism.

We are busy with the niqab and whether it is legitimate or not at a time when thousands of the sons of Muslims are living in French social institutions after their parents disavowed them. Moreover, academic failure is rife amid Muslims. We should ask ourselves about the priorities of Muslims in Europe. Is it education and learning or bragging about what is wrong, changing one's car, building a house in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, or Egypt, or engaging in a "defamatory argument" about the niqab? We need to gain education and learning, not the wearing of the niqab. We do not need a competition over who wears the longest beard or the shortest robe with trousers tucked up under them, as the fundamentalists do.

We need to follow the example of the Prophet and Messenger. A brother answered me in a debate over the radio and swore on the air that the niqab will enter the Elysee Palace one day. I replied to him and swore like him that "Islam will enter the Elysee Palace only with the morals of the Prophet Muhammad, the last messenger and Prophet, who was a mercy sent down to mankind, not with your niqab that has made people dislike Islam."

A few days ago, shots were fired at a mosque in the south of France. There is no smoke without fire. They are now afraid of this "black Islam."

[Asharq Al-Awsat] How would you explain the fact that, contrary to their fathers, the second and third generations [of Muslim immigrants] are less integrated in European societies?

[Chalghoumi] I will give you an example from the community around me, my relatives and compatriots. The fathers who came from our Arab countries in the fifties and sixties came for a precise objective of to work and then go back. They came with a determined goal. They held the view that they should respect this country, that they were ambassadors of their mother countries here. They were supposed to stay here for 10 or 15 years and then return to their respective countries, cherished and dignified. But those who are born in France for instance are marginalized because they do not know their religion. They have moved away from it. Moreover, when they go to their homelands, they are seen as foreigners there. In other words, they have no reference to turn toward.

Also, the French Government has placed them in closed districts, like ghettos. The priorities of these immigrant families were not moral education or learning religion, but buying cars or furniture for their apartments. This pushes the young toward moral delinquency, or makes them fall into the claws of terrorism, drugs, and extremism.

Meanwhile, we are busy with the burqa, the niqab, and the question of whether they are religiously permissible or not. We are also preoccupied with the war between India and Pakistan, and the violence and destruction in the tribal zone there. These should not be the priorities of the Muslim communities in Europe, which I sum up in two words: "Education and knowledge."

[Asharq Al-Awsat] What is the position of the Muslim community concerning your fatwas? Are those who are against them more numerous than their supporters?

[Chalghoumi] Regrettably, the majority is silent. This means that they agree, but they do so in deep silence. There is a minority of people who are against them, together with hard-line Salafi movement elements. They do not support me and do not side with me. This applies to the Muslim Brotherhood movement activists, who do not want somebody like me. Those who side with me are the Sufis [mystics] and the moderate people who follow the middle-of-the-road line. I am also supported by those who have no specific leanings or think about coexistence and integration into French society.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] What would you say to the fundamentalist imams who are not pleased with your religious discourse?

[Chalghoumi] I say: "Repel (evil) with what is better; then will he between whom and thee was hatred become as it were thy friend and intimate," [Partial Koranic verse, Fussilat, 41:34]. In other words, I answer them with what is better, meaning with evidence and proof. "He who believes in God and doomsday should say something good or remain silent [saying of Prophet Muhammad]."

We must show people that extremism is rife in Europe because of the spread of the hard-line fundamentalist movement that has gone underground in fear of the new counterterrorism. These fundamentalist trends are to be found in most countries, and Europe cannot avoid the presence of this extremist fundamentalist thought. By the end of this month, I am going to publish a book entitled: Sheikh Hassen Chalghoumi: For a French Islam. The book will be in the hands of readers on 20 May. It has 400 pages and broaches a large number of issues related to the daily life of the sons of the Muslim community in the united Europe.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] Have you already met with President Nicholas Sarkozy?

[Chalghoumi] Yes, I have met with him several times. But, I have good news for you: There are many moderate imams like me. President Sarkozy thanked me and said: The French Republic is grateful to you; this is the moderate Islam we want. We hope that the Muslims will also assume their duty.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] Where did you learn Islamic jurisprudence, and how did you qualify for the role of a preacher in the West?

[Chalghoumi] I studied in the Zitouna Institute in Tunisia and obtained a Baccalaureate in letters. I learned the jurisprudence of the holy religion in the Zitouna Institute too. I later went to Damascus, where I finished my religious science studies for two years. Then, I traveled to Lahore, Pakistan, where I studied jurisprudence, Shariaa, and religious science for three years. Then, I went to India for six months. I came to France as a student in 1996, in the historic town of Bobigny. I married at the end of the same year.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] What is a European Muslim? Should he be loyal to the state or to religion?

[Chalghoumi] His loyalty should be to Almighty God, but what is our religion? Is it not the religion of mercy and humanity? Is it not the religion of kindness and compassion? Also, is Europe not an ensemble of states of the rule of law, respect for human rights and for the religion in which we believe to promote the value of man? How can our graceful religion not be in harmony with the humanitarian European values?

[Asharq Al-Awsat] What is your preaching line, your own line?

[Chalghoumi] The middle-of-the-road line in Islam. This means excluding bigotry, extremism, and intransigence. For no one can claim to make absolutely correct judgments. No one is immune from being wrong, and no one has the absolute truth in knowledge. Also, no one can claim to be in possession of the keys to interpretation, judgments, and the reading of texts.

Therefore, the middle-of-the-road line is the most important behavior. It is a cultural method that can lead man to understanding. In dealing with all issues and matters, we as individuals, groups, doctrines, scholars, and opinion holders should follow the principle that says: "My view is right but may be wrong, and your view is wrong but may be right."

There were two schools of thought and movements close to people in Tunisia: one was Sufism and the other was the Attabligh [conveying the call] group. I learned from them leniency and wise talk before I carried preaching in my heart and mind to other countries.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] What advice would you give to Muslim families in Europe?

[Chalghoumi] I urge them to be their respective countries' ambassadors, and to abandon nationalist and sectarian Islam. First, we should say that our children are part of ourselves, then we should love these European countries the way we love our own homelands. We should zealously protect their security and peace.

In my sermons I pray to God to bestow security and peace on these countries where we live. I pray to Almighty God to help us ensure the security of these countries, and to protect and reassure us. One of the brothers has sent me a videotape containing the Friday sermon of an extremist, fundamentalist preacher, in which he says: "God, please destroy their homes, undermine their lives, and make their women widows." This is not the Islam of mercy, and has nothing to do with the prayer of the graceful Prophet when he said, addressing the polytheists of his Quraysh tribe: "Please God, forgive my people because they are ignorant."

And when the Prophet's companions said to him: Prophet of God, curse them! The Prophet replied: "I have not been sent as a curse but rather a guide to the pious ones and a mercy to mankind."

[Asharq Al-Awsat] Would you encourage Muslim families to send their children to Islamic schools?
[Chalghoumi] Many schools are good, and in harmony with our time and science, not just religious science. But what is important is to stay away from sectarian schools where children are taught and their minds crammed with Salafi Jihadist thought. They should teach children the morals of Islam and its commandments regarding daily life.

[Asharq Al-Awsat] How do you explain the rise of the extremist right in Europe in recent years? Is this motivated by the fear of Muslims?

[Chalghoumi] There is no smoke without fire. In addition to the presence of fundamentalist trends in European capitals and the emergence of their leaders who call for not rubbing shoulders with local societies, there is also the way certain Arab states deal with Europe. Concerning the recent crisis over minarets, certain Arab states dealt with Switzerland without deep reflection and wisdom.

Who pays the price for this? The price is paid by Muslims living in Europe.
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