America’s
Gift: A New Tradition in Islamic Thinking
By M. A. Muqtedar Khan
Assistant Professor
University of Delaware
US
West Sussex, England: American
foreign policy sins are numerous and some are
even unforgivable, like the invasion of Iraq -
based on false accusations - which has resulted
in much death and destruction. But to judge America
by its neo-conservative foreign policy would be
like judging Islam by what some radical, violence-prone
Muslims have done around the world - it would
be grossly unfair.
There is more, much more to America than its imprudent
foreign policy in the Muslim world.
America contributes to maintaining the global
order and has created and sustained some of the
most important institutions of the international
system, such as the United Nations and the World
Bank. In recent years, US foreign policy has resulted
in billions of dollars of tsunami relief in Southeast
Asia, earthquake assistance in Pakistan and economic
and development aid across Muslim lands. The United
States is the biggest foreign aid donor to the
Muslim World.
In the past, the United States has also intervened
militarily on behalf of Muslims in Bosnia, Somalia,
Kosovo and Kuwait.
On the domestic front, the United States is one
of the best places to live on the planet according
to many. People from all over the Muslim world
apply, in the millions, for visas to come to the
US (even after 9/11) in search of a better future.
Yet hardly any indigenous American Muslims are
seeking to migrate to predominantly Muslim countries
to improve their lives. The United States, and
not any one of the fifty-five Muslims nations,
is the number one choice of Muslims for permanent
relocation.
I have been living in the United States since
1992, when I arrived here from India. America
took in a young man from a developing nation and
after eight years of schooling, graduated an active
Muslim scholar who has testified to the US Senate
on foreign affairs, debated Bill Clinton in person
and Vladimir Putin in writing, advised Prince
Charles, held prolonged chats with Sadiq Al Mahdi,
shaken hands with King Abdullah and Emir Hamad
bin Khalifah, and had dinner with Benazir Bhutto.
This afternoon I had lunch with the grand Mufti
of Egypt, Shaykh Ali Gomaa, in a castle in the
South of England. Even when I was a poor graduate
student, and now as an active scholar, I have
been truly living my dream.
Because of the political and religious freedoms
I enjoy in the United States, I am able to practice
Islam at the highest level - that of ikr, or reflection.
I publish extensively, lecture and communicate
my ideas widely through the media. Muslim scholars
have always maintained that true happiness comes
from the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge
and I found this to be the case in America.
My life as a public intellectual is enabled by
America’s intellectual environment, its
great universities and, above all, its open public
sphere in which I participate wholeheartedly,
without fear or hesitation.
I am neither alone nor the most important beneficiary
of American culture. America has in recent years
produced and/or nurtured many good and extraordinarily
insightful Muslim thinkers like Seyyed Hossein
Nasr, Fazlur Rahman, Ismael Farruqi, Khaled Abou
el Fadl, Sherman Jackson, Asma Afsaruddin, Sohail
Hashmi, Azizah al Hibri, Taha Al-Alwani, Sulayman
Nyang, Louay Safi, Akber Ahmad, Maher Hathout,
Abdullah an-Naim, Ingrid Matteson and Amina Wadud,
to list but a few whose names come to mind readily.
America has also produced noteworthy Muslim spiritual
leaders who enjoy widespread appeal, way beyond
America’s borders. The likes of Shaykh Hamza
Yusuf are creating a uniquely American tradition
in Islamic spirituality. American Muslim initiatives
such as the American Journal of Islamic Social
Sciences have not only inspired research in the
Muslim world but have become the gold standard
in Muslim scholarship.
Today, one can talk about an American tradition
in Islamic thinking. Like America itself, it may
be short on history but it is also rich, powerful,
with global reach and profound impact.
American foreign policy may have perpetrated many
injustices against Muslims, but its gift of scholars
and scholarship to Islam and Muslims that has
allowed Islamic thinking to re-emerge and thrive
is indeed priceless.
(M. A. Muqtedar Khan is Assistant Professor at
the University of Delaware and a Senior Non-Resident
Fellow with the Saban Center at the Brookings
Institution. He is the author of ‘American
Muslims: Bridging Faith and Freedom’ and
his website is Ijtihad.org.)
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