Religion &
Politics: What American Muslims Can Do
By Zaheer Jan
Bedminster, New Jersey
America, our home, is a country
which is predominantly Christian. It is a beautiful
country. Its people are industrious, generous,
and kind. It has the greatest constitution ever
devised to protect its citizen’s rights:
our life, liberty and our ability to pursue happiness.
It guarantees us freedom to practice our respective
religions or to practice no religion at all.
The dark age of slavery and suppression of one
set of human beings and of women by another is
behind us. Women, though still have to struggle
for treatment as men’s equals. As American
Muslims, the question facing us is: what can we
contribute to improve the ethos of our beloved
country? What can we do to show that Muslims are
a great people and Islam, their religion, a great
religion? That we are inheritors of an outstanding
legacy. A legacy that brought about the flowering
of all civilizations that followed it. A religious
philosophy that, as long as fourteen hundred years
ago, spelled out equality for women; gave them
rights to property, divorce, childcare and alimony.
A philosophy that decried slavery and abhorred
discrimination of every kind no matter what the
criteria: religion, race, skin color, sex or national
origin. A philosophy that forbade the shedding
of any blood except only under the dire circumstance
of SELF-DEFENSE. Muslims showed leadership for
more than a millennium by practicing this philosophy.
That Ms. Ingrid Mattson has been elected President
of the Islamic Society of America should show
something of Islam’s philosophy. A woman
leading a Muslim community is not that unknown
a phenomenon in Islam, as some might think. Khadija,
the wife of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) was a leading
business woman of Arabia; it was she who had made
the proposal of marriage to the Prophet. Razia
Sultana was Empress of India from 1205 to 1240,
and recently Benazir Bhutto led the government
in Pakistan while Mrs. Khaleda Zia, is Prime Minister
of Bangladesh.
The election of Ingrid Mattson carried out at
a time when Islamic philosophy and the very person
of Prophet Mohammad are under assault by the Western
propaganda comes at good time. Their slurs try
to hide the West’s own failings over centuries
past when women of the West had no status at all.
When women of courage like Joan of Arc were burnt
at the stake just for speaking up.
Electing Ingrid Mattson as President of ISNA is
only the beginning, however. We have an immensely
long way to go. No amount of Western propaganda
can do Islam the damage than what has been inflicted
on its body politic by its practitioners in the
Muslim world. Cross the Atlantic and go round
the world to the farthest shores of Indonesia,
preachers are fomenting the philosophy of hatred
of every human other than those who listen to
these self-appointed leaders. Little wonder that
Muslims have become the latest bogey men, in a
long line of bogey men employed by American leaders
over ages to whip up the public’s fear.
President Bush is no exception.
But can he really be blamed? Out of the one hundred
and thirty countries of the world sixty have a
population of Muslims exceeding fifty per cent;
forty-eight have more than seventy percent. Governments
of these countries are run by Muslim leaders.
How many leaders have come forward to declare
unequivocally that KILLING OF NON-COMBATANTS IS
FORBIDDEN IN ISLAM? In the same vain how many
of our Muslim leaders, here in the USA, have vocalized
that same line and have condemned fanatical Muslims
openly? Small wonder then that preachers like
Rev. Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Rev. Billy
Graham and an unaccounted number of other televangelists
and even Pope Benedict XVI have a field day excoriating
Islam and Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). They are not
knowledgeable about either. And, who must shoulder
the blame for their ignorance? US MUSLIMS!
Persons like Ingrid Mattson, Abdallah (ne Marc
Schleifer who had known Ayman Zawahiri and tried
to dissuade him from his fundamentalist ways),
Martin Lings the keeper of Oriental Manuscripts
at the British Museum, Keith Ellison running for
election this fall to the fifth Congressional
District, who became a Muslim at age 19, and countless
others took the trouble to research and find out
for themselves about Islam. Result? They stopped
slinging mud at it and Prophet Mohammad and realized
that Islam is not what the Western propagandists
make it to be. The non-inquisitive keep on relying
on the Western propaganda machine nevertheless.
It is our duty to give the lie to that propaganda
machine and educate the non-inquisitive.
There is much to do about fundamental religion
these days: In America, the Middle East or the
Far East everyone seems to be on its bandwagon.
Thankfully, the contagion has not spread into
Europe, Central Asia, Canada, South of the US
border or to the rest of the Southern Hemisphere,
yet. People espousing a fundamentalist form of
religion seem to be locked in what they see as
a battle for survival. The so called “Clash
of Civilizations”, or “Either you
are with us or against us” syndrome. In
the mountain hideouts of Afghanistan Osama bin
Laden has crowned himself Khalifa al Muslaimeen,
the commander of the faithful. On this side of
the Atlantic our President has declared that he
answers to a higher father. The US congress is
doing his bidding without questions. What is right
for the country seems of little consequence; what
is right for controlling the government at all
cost, is all the rage. The government of our country
founded on one of the noblest, almost sublimest,
principles seems headed in the wrong direction.
Let us start with religion: For the very reason
that they were Christians, our founding fathers
and the framers of American constitution laid
the foundations of this country on the premise
of separation of church and state. They were very
cognizant of the facts that they had inherited
the legacy of a civilization most of whose history
was steeped in bloodshed – from before the
time of Christ’s crucifixion all the way
to their times. They were aware that Western Civilization
celebrated war and killing; blood and gore. They
well knew the atrocities people of differing religions
had visited upon each other. They had read about
Christians being fed to lions for amusing the
Romans. They also knew about the atrocities visited
upon humanity by Christians, when in turn they
wrested power from the infidels. They knew about
the Spanish Inquisition; they were cognizant of
the annihilation of the great Mexican and the
South American civilizations by Cortez and Pizarro
respectively. With that as the background, the
founding fathers wanted to ensure that their new
country would not fall into the trap of religious
philosophy or set of priests. Let people hold
their beliefs any which way they like but do not
let them bring their religious beliefs into the
way the government of this country will function,
is what they mandated. (To be continued)
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