Author: Imam Abu Laith Luqman Ahmad
Publication: Communalism Combat
Date: June 2006
URL: http://www.sabrang.com/cc/archive/2006/june06/forum.html
Introduction: Islamophobia: A new escapism
for America's Muslims?
Recognition of Islamophobia as the irrational
and unwarranted fear of Muslims and Is-lam lingers in lexical incubation.
Some accept the term fully while others discount its validity. Whether this
neologism will gain currency as a bona fide social pathology or be viewed
simply as a marginally legitimate term, moonlighting as a public relations
tool, remains to be seen. Phobias, according to the American Psychiatric Association,
are mental disorders characterised by persistent and irrational fear of a
particular thing, situation or animal. The word Islamophobia and the operative
definition applied to it is far from clinical recognition. However, I must
admit, it is a catchy term and certainly trendy-sounding enough to fuel circulation.
Like: "What are you guys doing this weekend? "We're going to fight
Islamophobia!" Its etymology ensures seamless placement in the "for
Islam", "saving the deen", "for Allah" category.
Islamophobia has a diabolical, sinister ring
to it. You can almost picture a young Muslim mother sending her child off
to public school: "Now son, remember to drink your milk, look both ways
when you cross the street, don't forget to say your prayers on time and be
sure to watch out for any Islamophobia!" We've used the term with such
frequency and with such self-serving overtones that it has started to lose
it effectiveness if it even had any. Picture the scenario of a man who utters
an anti-Muslim remark causing outrage in the Muslim community; he's rushed
to a licensed Islamophobist for diagnosis, after submitting to a few diagnostics
the man turns to the doctor in anxious trepidation and says: "Well Doc,
tell me! What is it? Racism? Psychomotor agitation? Bipolar disorder? Bird
flu? The doctor, clipboard in hand, gazes solemnly into his eyes and says:
"No Pat, what you have is a mild case of Islamophobia." The man,
wiping the sweat off his brow, says: "That's all? Thank God, for a moment
I thought it was something serious."
As Muslims, accurate and responsible use of
categorical verbiage is a moral obligation and, in this case, a vital tactical
adjunct for Muslims in America. This is why it is critical that before we
wage jihad against Islamophobia, we accurately define the terminology. Perhaps
we can avoid misdirecting our energies in what may very well be another fruitless
pursuit, frocked in Islamic trappings, that fails to address the root of our
problems as Muslims. Sure there is discrimination against Muslims and yes,
it should be addressed, but not manipulated. I don't see crowds of rednecks
chasing down Muslims in the streets.
Let's set aside American foreign policy for
a moment, that's a separate issue. I'm talking about everyday life, living
in America. Are there Americans who fear Muslims? Absolutely, and there are
some that fear bald-headed bikers clad in leather, there are some that fear
Latinos, Italians whose last name ends in a vowel and Christian fundamentalists.
There are people in America who fear African Americans, especially those less
than 25 years of age who, parenthetically, may be the most feared minority
in the country. There are people in America who fear skinheads, the sound
of fire trucks, the din of crowded subways, men with bushy moustaches, Caucasians,
the police, Catholic priests, the homeless, and there are even people in America,
believe it or not, who are mortified by toothless old ladies. I'm terrified
of dentist visits and a contentious divorce could make a person afraid of
the opposite sex. Welcome to the club. Fear is an industry in America and
that's not going to change any time soon.
Accepting that there are Americans who fear
Muslims, is such fear completely irrational? Well, knowing that a surgically
worded fatwa can turn an unsuspecting young Muslim into a societal menace
overnight and the capricious way in which a Muslim can be suddenly labelled
a non-Muslim, a deviant or infidel does cause concern. Is there fanaticism
in the name of Islam? Yes. Is it widespread? Yes. Are we doing much to combat
it? I don't think so. I'd never expect that anyone could find any moral imperative
to suicide bomb a Mawlid celebration. Regardless of the variant opinions of
Muslims on celebrating the birthday of Prophet Muhammad, bombing a group of
Muslims - many of whom were scholars of Islam - gathered in honour of Allah's
final messenger would make a person say Hmm… Talk about Americans fearing
Muslims, there are Muslims that fear Muslims! Does this qualify them as Islamophobes?
I think not.
We can blame the media until we are blue in
the face for negative portrayals of Islam and Muslims. Even as of this writing,
graphic imagery of Muslim on Muslim violence, Muslim rage, Muslim turmoil,
dominate network and print media. However, these images fuel policy; they
help pass massive budget appropriations and provide justification for the
mega industry that is known as the war on terror. Preparing ourselves for
the so-called Muslim threat has created completely new industries in America
as well as bolstering others. Police departments are spending billions of
dollars on preventive arsenal and technology to prepare for the Muslim threat.
Kevlar-fitted canines, which 10 years ago might have been the butt of a Jay
Leno opening monologue, are now a lucrative commercial venture.
There is such abundance and variety of Muslim
media footage that politicians, policy makers, businessmen, non-profits and
industrialists can literally pick out what suits their purpose. Want to do
missionary work in Iraq? Grab some hungry children footage. Want to get funding
to buy new jail doors from your brother in-law's company? Get some terrorist
cell simulation footage. Want to retrofit that county bridge to withstand
a terrorist attack? Of course, no one could imagine what a so-called terrorist
would want with a bridge in the middle of nowhere, but you simply pull out
the appropriate news footage and motion passed. The press is only doing their
job, selling news entertainment.
The question is, what are we going to do?
Continue complaining? Ignore our own ills? Only take on agendas that have
fund-raising potential? The only thing stopping the Muslims from changing
their condition is our own arrogance, religious sectarianism, injustices to
our selves and refusal to address serious social Islamic issues. It is nonsense
to assume that the media is the only culprit. Or to assume we can somehow
eradicate unwarranted fear or distrust of Muslims through the rhetoric of
public relations or references to the glorious history of Islam. America is
a 'what have you done for me lately' kind of country. Which, by the way, is
not an unIslamic viewpoint. The prophet said: "Verily deeds are tallied
according to those that are last (innamaa al-a'maalu bil khawaa'teem)."
Years of town halls, demonstrations, accountability sessions, sensitivity
training and boycotts hasn't removed graphic negative Muslim media imagery
from top billing on headline news. Money can't buy you love. Yeah, I know
the Beatles said it in 1964 but Allah said it 1,400 years prior: "And
if you spent everything in the world you could not have joined between their
hearts, but it is Allah who joined between them", 8:63.
Americans do not necessarily fear Islam and
Muslims. What Americans do not want is to see suicide bombers in New York
City. As an American Muslim who knows no other homeland, I have no problem
in protecting our borders or legitimately defending my country. Does that
make me a bad Muslim? I live here, why would I want to see America go down
in flames? I have issues with the phrase "Death to America". Our
way of life here may not be all good but it definitely is not all bad. We
need to stop making politics part of theology or if we insist on doing so
we should accept that no one group or ethnicity can speak for all American
Muslims. You have scholars who have never experienced the family bonding that
takes place at Thanksgiving dinner or understood the true nature of the holiday
making fatwas using triangulated logic, telling me that to sit down with my
Muslim and non-Muslim family to eat roasted turkey, macaroni and cheese, hug
my aunties whom I haven't seen all year and watch a football game with my
cousins is a faith deficiency! My response to that fatwa is posted elsewhere.
However, the point I'm making is that there is a distinct, irrational, extremist
tendency in our application of Islam that needs to be extricated.
Americans are more confused about Islam and
Muslims than anything else. I don't think the media is entirely to blame for
that. Heck, even Muslims are confused about Islam. Every year there are millions
of Muslims in America who are confused about the start of Ramadan. Should
I fast or should I eat? Can I do both? Taraaweeh prayer: is it 20 rakáat
or 8? Am I wrong if I do 8? Am I an innovator if I do 20? Do I give salaams
to all Muslims or just some of them? Do I boycott American products even though
I live in America? I still can't figure that one out. There are so many conflicting
fatwas flying around that a person spirals into bewilderment just trying to
keep track of them, let alone making sense of some of them.
Domestically, the American people have accommodated
and accepted the Muslim presence in too many ways for anyone to suggest that
there is a pandemic of Islamophobia. It has been and still is a struggle.
However, the doors have already been opened in large part by African American
Muslims. American Muslims in the United States have very little difficulty
buying homes, starting businesses, enrolling in universities or obtaining
the so-called American dream. Redundant use of psycho-suggestive coinage would
tend to make you feel that people are staring you down when they just happen
to be looking at you like they do everybody else. It can also convince you
that you were not hired because you were a Muslim and not simply because another
candidate was more appealing or more qualified. Statistically speaking, incidents
of anti-Muslim hate, violence, discrimination in America are relatively low.
If we divide the 1,500 or so anti-Muslim and anti-Arab (what about anti-African
or anti-Asian?) incidents reported by one of the largest and loudest civil
rights groups in America into the six million Muslims who legally reside in
America, that adds up to 2/10ths of a per cent. If we multiply the number
by five to take into consideration unreported incidents, we arrive at the
grand total of one per cent of the general Muslim population, hardly enough
to qualify fighting Islamophobia as a top priority!
Using the term as a scare tactic has created
another neologism: 'Islamophobia-phobia' (the fear of Islamophobia), which
is a greater threat to Muslims than Islamophobia. It is true that many Muslims
in America receive daily briefs detailing anti-Muslim incidents. However,
these daily alarms appear more like self-serving, opinion shaping, headline
grabbing and manipulative issue control than proof of an evil, unwarranted,
mindless campaign against Muslims and Arabs by the American citizenry. Give
me a break!
With respect to the religion of Islam, the
only ones who can taint its image are its designated practitioners i.e. the
Muslims. This is why the prophet opted not to dispose of some of the treasonous
hypocrites in Medina. It also explains why he reprimanded Mu'aath ibn Jabal
for leading the congregational prayer beyond reasonable length. Both actions
are potential repellents. Extremism - although it may seem, depending upon
the interpreter, to have a textual basis (Koran and Sunna) - usually results
in other than the desired outcome. Our failure to realise this point will
leave us in disappointment. We have many examples of such. Our recent overreaction
to the cartoon portrayal of the prophet is just one. None of our protests
altered the prophet's status in any way. His place with Allah is still secure
and in the same degree he is still the honoured last prophet of god. All the
ranting did not endear the masses to Islam; it exposed our lack of rectitude,
it cost us lives, money, time, moral capital and lacked definitive textual
basis.
Human beings cannot invalidate the quality
or value of Islam; on the contrary, Islam is a divinely pre-validated faith
and way of life according to orthodox Islamic creed (aqeeeda). "Verily
the religion of Allah is Islam", 3:19. Adherence to Islam or lack of
it determines humanistic value, balances societies and, by the way, supports
stable, healthy civilisations. Anti-Islamic sentiment in the United States
has particular causes such as providential disbelief or what is known in theological
jargon as kufr. Nothing we can do about that. "And tis no different whether
you warn them or do not warn them, they will not believe", 36:10. Other
causes are misunderstanding, misrepresentation of Islam by Muslims or non-Muslims,
injustice, the absence of Islamic standards of civility (yes, there is such
a thing) and the conspicuous scarcity of Muslim social service institutions
in America. Furthermore, anti-Islamic sentiment is not always tantamount to
anti-god, anti-righteousness or anti-justice. You can't go around accusing
anyone who criticises a Muslim of being immoral or Islamophobic. We are gullible
but we're not idiots, at least not all of us.
Placing responsibility for Islam's image on
other than ourselves is a flawed and unstable paradigm that siphons away valuable
time, energy and spiritual as well as temporal benefit. It distracts us from
individual and collective responsibility and sets in motion as'baab (causative
factors) that could deprive us, at this critical juncture in our history,
of what we need most: divine intervention and support. This can only come
from Allah. "Allah is the Friend of those who believe; He takes them
out of the darknesses into the (one) light", 2:257. Faith, more than
rhetoric action, is required. If we for a moment think that success or improvement
in our condition can ever occur without it we are engaging in a fantasy, existing
only in the quilt of our minds, woven together with the threads of wishful
thinking. Want to prove people in the West wrong about Muslims? Be charitable,
help others, feed the hungry, assist the orphan, teach people to read, build
a hospital, pave a road or clean a park. Charitable work does wonders for
the soul and it doesn't hurt public image either if that's what we care about.
The prophet said: "Prayer is light and charity is proof." When a
people address their own ills and acknowledge their individual and collective
faults and their need to change wrongful ways, and embrace fairness, righteousness,
civility, adab, humility, brotherhood, honesty, patience and the qualities
that ultimately define our character, change becomes imminent. Divine assistance
is set in motion.
Labelling people Islamophobes still muzzles
some criticism of Islam and Muslims. However, for many other Americans it
just tees them off, especially when one can easily see the upward mobility,
affluence, academic, commercial and political presence of immigrant Muslims
in American society. No one likes a perpetual whiner, especially one perceived
as having a silver spoon on his palate. This is regardless of whether he worked
for it or not. Other than paying taxes, there is no significant Islamic social
welfare component to offset suspicion, hostility, resentment or mistrust.
This is another cause for anti-Muslim or anti-Arab sentiment in America.
We hardly see Islamic ideals and principles
manifested institutionally in the United States. Oh, pardon me, that's not
entirely true. Islamic ideals and principles do exist in many American institutions.
Let's see: the Salvation Army, Habitat for Humanity, free and reduced fee
clinics, food stamps, homeless shelters, the SPCA, fire departments, traffic
lights, free libraries, trash collection, the ability to disagree publicly,
oh, and we have tawheed (monotheism) here too. Maybe we have forgotten what
Islam is all about. It just may be possible that we have some closet Islamophobia
within us! Let us all, myself included, get our act together and leave dog-and-pony
shows to the circus.
The answers are coming…
(Imam Abu Laith Luqman Ahmad is a freelance
writer, consultant and American Muslim political and social analyst. Parts
of this article were excerpted from his upcoming book, Normalising Islam in
America, due in July 2006. You can contact him at imamabulaith@yahoo.com or
visit his web site at www.lotustreepublications.com.)
