Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism (61 page)

As an aid to understanding the type of extremist material circulating for the youthful Muslim audience, I offer some selections from a Hizb-e Tahrir newsletter.
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The Hizb-e Tahrir is a radical fringe group, founded in the Middle East, which has a following among diaspora Muslim youth.
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In a nostalgic revisioning of Muslim history, they configure the last Ottoman Sultan, Abd al-Hamid, as a religious hero and hold that restoring a universal Muslim caliphate and rejecting the West is the best political program available to Muslims today. Among their strategies are disrupting mosque meetings and lectures where moderates or non-Muslims speak.

According to a Hizb-e Tahrir publication, targeted at Muslim youth in the West,

Prior to the seventeenth century, Europe did not have an ideology; it was still caught in the feudal system. . . . Whereas the Islamic state, al-Khilafah, was implementing the Islamic ideology and progressing rapidly.

How the
khilafa
(the institution of the Caliphate) becomes equated to a “state” is bewildering. The assertion that feudalism is not an ideology – while simultaneously holding that the Caliphate is – demonstrates the paucity of logic, historical understanding, and critical faculties of these groups.

A further excerpt from the same publication, which was distributed at a Hizb-e Tahrir booth operating at a major American Muslim conference, states,

The Shari‘ah provides the prescriptions and prescriptions. The Shari‘ah instructs the Muslim on what livelihood is permissible, when it is okay to lie, or when killing becomes a
wajib
(compulsory) act of
ibadah
(worship). While the value is the objective of the action, it is not the basis nor the goal. It is Allah who tells the Muslim on [
sic
] how to achieve the objective.

If the Muslim achieves the objective in the manner in which Allah commands s/he achieves the goal.
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Note the pre-occupations demonstrated by the choice of examples – killing and lying. I have heard Muslim youth in America discussing political strategies of making agreements in bad faith with the intent of violating them as an effective strategy to achieve goals. The implications of framing “killing” (uncontextualized) as an act of worship are disturbing, particularly in the aftermath of the horrific events of September 11. No wonder the articles in this magazine are unsigned – although poor grammar and logic could be a secondary reason for not admitting ownership.

The same pamphlet states, “the Islamic nation which once wielded the geo- political force of an atom bomb, no longer exists.”
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This is an odd and telling analogy – why would a pre-modern society be compared to an atom bomb? The message of lost Muslim glory, nursing grievances, and idealizing violence can thus be seen to circulate in this discourse targeted at Muslim youth. While most Muslims in America would consider this movement marginal and extreme, I hear far too few voices in the community raised against it.

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In the preceding remarks my intention was to raise awareness of ways in which Muslim youth identities in America are moving in increasingly rigid and troubling directions. In terms of moving forward in a constructive fashion, I propose a number of strategies and approaches.

Psychological and sociological analysis as a tool for understanding

One strategy for “putting the genie back” is information and understanding, even sympathetic understanding of the context within which these youth movements emerge. Such information assists an understanding of the phenomenon on the

part of parents, advisors, and the youth themselves. The tendency to see things in binary oppositions helps neither the youth nor those trying to facilitate their development. A sense of the forces that impinge on the experiences of modern Muslim youth movements, within both internationalist Islamic movements and Western societies, helps one to put certain stances into perspective and historical context.

Scholarship focusing on Muslim youth in Canada and Britain seems to be somewhat ahead of that carried out in the United States and therefore may provide insights into emerging American Muslim youth cultures. Muslim youth in Britain have tended to be concentrated in certain cities such as London and Bradford. They also suffer greater class oppression than Muslim immigrants to America owing to the history of immigration to Britain from the ex-colonies and the different racial categories (intuitive if not official) operative in Britain.

The emergence of the Muslim community in the dominant imagination can be seen as the latest in a series of re-creations of Asian identities in the post-war period. Starting life as colored, reinvented in the 1960s and 1970s as politically black, rediscovered as Asian in the new racist/multi- culturalist 1980s, it is the events of the late 1980s and the early 1990s that have re-imagined Asian identities along religious-cultural lines.
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Still, the effects of racism and the role of race and class play an important role in determining alternatives available for youth identities in the United States and this aspect needs to be further explored.
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In terms of understanding the dynamic underlying what I term “hyper- religiosity” among a number of American Muslim youth, the Canadian Muslim scholar of minority education Yasmin Zine observes,

The importance of staying on the straight path becomes particularly germane to Muslims who live in non-Muslim societies. Things such as dating and premarital sex, drug, and alcohol use, which are common practices among many youth in North America, are strictly forbidden in Islam. As such, the religious values and lifestyles of Muslim can be difficult to maintain in a society based on often contradictory secular norms.
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Zine therefore explains the affirmation of religious identity among Muslim students not only as a way to negotiate their expressions of faith but also as a means of using these Muslim identities as a means of resistance to counteract their marginality within Eurocentric public schools.

As a future project, I recommend the undertaking of longitudinal studies that trace these youth into their thirties and forties as a means of understanding how hyper-religious zeal arises at a particular phase of personality development and gradually diffuses with the demands of career and family life. In fact many of the cliquish, aggressive, and shunning behaviors that I witness remind me of my

own high school days and seem to draw on adolescent anxieties robed in Islamic identity symbols. Late adolescence is, after all, the time of the identity crisis for all, not just Muslims. In addition, many Muslim youth from immigrant backgrounds may be facing their first extended experience away from the family, and a relatively sheltered home life may result in their displaying attitudes and behaviors usually expected from a younger cohort.

I also observe that while one might expect graduates of Islamic schools to have the most problems with the shift to integration in a more diverse environment, the pressures of minority status in public schools seem to have more of a negative impact on some Muslim students. An additional factor might be that the lack of training or credentialing for mosque Sunday school teachers may make such classes arenas for the reinforcement of negative aspects of identity Islam. This also warrants further investigation.

Recognizing and fostering diversity among American Muslim youth

Just as a progressive stance recognizes and celebrates diversity in the larger society, a progressive stance toward Muslim youth subcultures needs to explore their diversities, probing the potentially empowering aspects of these differences and trying to anticipate and foster elements of chosen identities that could advance progressive attitudes. For example, South Asian youth in America differentiate themselves as to whether they are “American Born Confused Desis” (ABCDs) or “Fresh off the Boat.” Interestingly, the two groups tend to avoid socializing with one another and generally find little resonance with each other’s outlook. My personal impression is that those who have spent larger portions of childhood abroad find the zeal of the American-raised Muslim youths perplexing. Recently arrived Muslim youth are less likely to become hyper-religious, but may remain culturally ghettoized. Among the hyper-religious youth, distinctive strands of traditionalist versus radicalized Islamic identities may be observed, sometimes coalescing in a single individual. Various tendencies circulating in the American Muslim community inspired by Salafi, Tablighi, or Sufi movements have an impact on youthful articulations of Muslim identity. Social location of the families also impacts identity, youth who are less privileged often have wider circles of contacts across ethnic lines (i.e. Hispanic and African-American friends) because they attend public schools in the same neighborhoods.

Sponsoring Academic Presentations on Islam

A further strategy for enabling progressive attitudes rather than rigid identity is to encourage, in so far as possible, lectures on campus (or at the Islamic center) that present aspects of Islam in an intellectual, objective manner rather than pandering to identity affirmation and apologism.

For example, at a campus lecture I attended, an academic expert on the topic of women in Islam cited some of the
hadith
from the main Sunni collections,

those of Muslim and Bukhari, that condemn women as being defective in intellect and religion. Some of the Muslim women students were surprised that such sentiments were recorded in the authoritative compendia of religion and therefore felt motivated to further explore historical and religious discussions of women’s role in Islam. Muslim youth are often unfamiliar with the basics of their own tradition and therefore accept a sugar-coated apologism. Exposure to balanced and historical treatments by Muslim and non-Muslim scholars should be part of their educational experience. Unfortunately, Muslim youth organizations tend to maintain a very limited roster of Islamic “motivational” speakers who affirm a predictable identity and circulate the same set of apologetic platitudes.

Accountability

A recent discussion in the media of the need for more campus Muslim chaplains raised ambivalent feelings for me. Initially I was concerned that this would further entrench identity Islam among the university Muslim community. The imagined chaplain of the article was to be an ex-MSA officer who loved the experience so much that he (or she) wanted to come back to campus. I imagined not only my own marginalization by such a person but also that of liberal Muslim students who are quite comfortable interacting with American people and institutions.

After some reflection, however, I saw the positive aspects both of having

adults who have at least a university education advising Muslim students and of the idea of Muslim leadership on campus having some accountability to the institution. One of the problematic issues in campus MSAs is outsider influence that tends to be ultra-conservative, ghettoized, or even radicalized. Community members, students’ relatives, or students from other schools are invited to lead Friday prayers and can say whatever they want, with no accountability. At one Friday prayer, a relative of one of the Muslim students gave the sermon – it was election time – and told the students they should not vote in the elections of this “
kafir
country.” At least having a chaplain who would be the person on call and who would have responsibility for campus activities might keep that aspect under control.

In this essay I have largely spoken from the perspective of my world, the university campus. At a broader level I would call for accountability on the part of Muslim organizations that have largely focused, it seems to me, on promoting identity rather than encouraging reflection and positive contributions from youth.

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In the context of campus life, one finds both the greatest polarization of youth identities and the greatest potential to explore them. The National Islam

Awareness Weeks sponsored by MSAs across America are explicitly intended to expose more non-Muslims on campus to Islam. In fact, the events are often narrow and apologetic “preaching to the choir” and only the celebration of narrow identity is achieved. “Convert Testimonial” night, for example, is unlikely to be a big draw on campus (although very interesting sociologically for students of religion). At least some Muslim students realize the value of cultural elements such as food, film, or poetry in attracting others to hear about Islamic civilization and, indirectly, religion. Therefore, such events have an intrinsically progressive element and should be encouraged as a bridge among diverse Muslim and non-Muslim students. Campus events and politics also lead students to open up to alliances and the benefits of co-sponsoring with diverse groups. Therefore the more this is encouraged on campus, the more students’ rigidity and isolationism can be challenged as they find common cause and interest with their peers from other backgrounds.

I conclude with the observation that we are passing through a transitional and critical period in the history of the Muslim community in the United States. The educational and social experiences of Muslim youth in the university system will play an important role in developing the orientation of this population. I feel disappointed that major Muslim organizations have consciously or unconsciously participated in reinforcing patterns of Islamic identity that will not serve youth well during their years of intellectual and social maturation. The dominant perspective and representation of Islam in America has thus far come from the perspective of immigrants. Adjustments to the American cultural context will inevitably take place as the born-in-America generation comes of age. Will these adjustments be made in the light of finding common and empowering connections between American intellectual and cultural traditions and Islamic principles, or will isolationism further fragment Muslims into assimilationists and rejectionists? Unless the genie of identity Islam is understood and channeled in more constructive directions, I fear that the energies and aspirations of Muslim youth may be spent in the pursuit and reinforcement of a brittle shell that will not withstand the test of time.