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J THE O U R N A L O F ISLAMIC LAW AND C U L T U R E CONTENTS JIHAD AND THE MODERN WORLD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sherman A. Jackson ISLAMICLAW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . An Overview oj.18 Origin and Elemmrr Irshad Abdal-Haqq THE TWIN TOWERS AS MARTYRS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Ph~losophicdl Ided And Some O f Is Problems t Akel Isrliail Kahera, Ph.D. INALIENABLE RIGHTS? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mu!bm 118 [he US.Slnce September 1 lth Scot: Alexander ONE CULTURE, TWO FRAMEWORKS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . US. .Wedid r o u e r d ~ ef A r a b at iJome end A broad o Mary Ann Weston and Marda Dunsky AS THE SMOKE BEGAN TO CLEAR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Refecitom on Isldm in Americd Ajer Septembrr flth Michael Wolfe BOOK REVIEWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tdlibdn AHMED RASHID Reviewed by Ellen Etchlngham How Did ThIs Hdppai? Terrorism and The New War JAMES E HOGE,JR. AND GIDEON ROSE Whdt Wait Wrong: Wutenr Impdit dnd MIddle E a t Rerpolue BERNARD LEWIS 7enorism m Americd: A Common S m e Strdtec~$r A Democrattc Socieq - ED. BY P H r r ~ i eHEYMANN Reviewed by Frcderick Thaufeer al-Deen 164 TheJo;irna! of Islamic Law and Culture IVol7:l voice, biased framing of issues and lac!! of appropriate historical context. A partial answer to the question of why this dualism exists may be that the American journalistic goal of objectivity is confronted by two realities. Domestically. American sociery, while relatively inclusiw and tolerant of diversity (when compared with other Western industrialized nations), accommodates cenain ethnic and religious groups and con~munities more easily than it does others - and this uneven accom~odation reflected in press coverage of is those groups and communities. Internationally, U.S. foreign policy has been and continues to bc at odds with the majority of nations and peoples in a region whose majority populations are Muslim and Arab. This, too, is reflected in U.S. press caverage of the region. Though the press ofren falls short, it publicly endorses rhe ideal of diversity - fair and accurate treatment of all racial and ethnic groups - in domestic news coverage. In international coverage this ideal oFten gives way to coverage driven by and reflective of U.S. foreign pol~cy interests. Technology's abiliv to close geographical distance is one of the hallmark; of the age of globalization. Globalized media with U.S. media at their forefront have ridden waves of technological advancement to bring their readers and around the world. Based on viewers near-instant access to events r~nfolding the textual analyses presented in this article, however, it appears that the journalistic practices that would close the gap in perception and bias between journalist and subject have not caught up to the technological advances that have rendered physical geographical distance nearly irrelevant. The implications of stereotyping of Arabs in domestic and international news coverage would appear to be exponentially gteater in the postSeptember 11, 2001, world. In this changed and fluid set of circumstances that comprises aspects of international law, domestic civil rights, foreign and domestic intelligence policy and terrorism - all of which have direct bearing for Arabs at home and abroad how the U.S. press reports on these communities can have even greater impact on public opinion and public policy than ever before. Thus consideration of the issues presented in this article are not just a matter for academic discussion. They are a matter of vital importance to the l i e s and well-being of Arab individuals in the United States, the Middle East and around the world. AS T H E S M O K E B E G A N TO CLEAR Reflections on Islam in America A$er September 11th Michael Wolfe ~ l t h o u g h pager are intrndrdfbr theJouml of Islamic Ldw and ~u!turb,I am there not a Ie~alschoLir,a nrlmre cniic, or any sort of authoriv on Islam I am a writer and cfilmprodzcer. I'm also thcsun of a Chrbt~un andaJou, born dndraired in Cincinnah: I only became a Mudim cu. an adult. Like many AmcricaiiMuslims, I knoujilrt enough Arubic to sliy ny ddibprayt+s. My accerr to the e r ' m a n d M d ~ a m dbiogrcpb l j limited to trdmlihbnr in ny l ~ O ~ g e , s And ~i~hhrle Ihavr sonitnines frcveled in traditionalMuslim countrier, I don't thriik l f i b somehow better here. nor w u l d I serious^ comider relocming. I set no contradicrion between prartinng Islam and living where I do. In all t h a t maerr, grnrrrrl$ sp/aking. I am likr a mlijorip ofthe world'sM~~1imrf.om Indonesra to Indiaria. I w m ' r drawn to I ~ l m irr vibrant mlh~re,iri sophiiticated law or iir very by prachkal m<tap@sics.Nor wlir I attrccted by a book, rgroup, or a teacher, I c&meto respm I s h as I expen'enced il, in day-toddy intwacriom with urban and mraIMuslims in the Maghrib - an enormous plot o hrorth and Wst A f i c u that links the modern f *horn of Momcm, Tunisia, Sme.1, G h w , Nz;Pwir and N%ec A3rfiniihing co!!qre, I lived a d traveled there iby bus train. and rmck)for abo~ir r r e y u n in the a r b 1970s. c h I didn'i become a M d m r then (I n m r oncr setfoot inride a mosque during rhdt period.] I simply became plemantlyj%miliar with Islam, by living among its Afiicun practihanerr. The wliy the rel@on conncctrd adssetvedpeopkin their &iiy l k wifhohour handicapping them, imprrrsed mr Although ri2 other par0 ofthe world some groups of Muslims were already using religion to cut them;!vrr o f j o m others, thru was certain& not the m e in W m A f n c d in those days. M d i m lluedand worked with their neighbors, x~lam who were ch@y Christiam and animirtr. Somerimer, in mattm of k i n e or ~de, even seemed to improve thingsj5r n o n - ~ m l i mBqond the eare of their rocid relutioru, . - 166 TheJoumai of Islamic Lo# and Ciilhlrr [Vol 7:1 Spring/Summer ZOOZ] Ar the ~moke Begdn ro Clear 167 Igredb psreemed the iighmess with which oeyddy A icdn Muslim carried theirfiith. f 1 Irked where they carried i( too - not on their s l e w , but in their hearts and heads. I include rhesepersonai detailr ds a preface, jbr people who mdy want to set the following opiniam in a conrext, The following paragraphs try to give shape to my thoughts and feelings about American Islam in the wake of terrorist attacks in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington D.C. on September 11, 2001. Like any American with a TV set that day, the events I witnessed on September 11th were marked by pathos and confusion. Although I watched the destruction unfold from 3000 miles away, it did not feel like a remote event, nor did I experience it as an observer. Instead, it was as if all this were taking place in my living room a; home. The historian Arthur J. Schlesinger Jr. once remarked that Americans often suffer from too much "pluribus" and not enough "unum," and it is true thatwe are probably the world's most disparate population, but for the rest of that September we were intimately joined by silent screens. My initial thoughts that day are not so easy to separate from the tangle of disbelief and stunned reactions I shared with people who were experiencing things firsthand in New York and Vlashington. Like the landscape itself, thinking had to wait for the smoke to clear. When that began to happen, my mind started to move in several directions. The very idea of being an American Muslim, after Muslim had bombed American landmarks and killed civilians from over eighty countries, opened my thinking to several points of view. AanAmerican, I was horrified by the level of violence and by the coldness of its execution, too. Like many people, I felt angry. A handful of sociopaths, to make a point, had left in shreds the social contract by which an open sociery lives and breathes. Day by day, I also witnessed unparalleled heroics, performed without an ounce of rhetoric, in the serviceof other human beings. Although born suspicious of patriotism and of the easy pride that mats most groups, in the face of these heroics I felt proud to be living where I do. AsaMmlim, I had other, different feelings. The actions of the perpetrators appalled me, and especially their claim to be acting in Islam's name. Well before their actual identities emerged, many Muslims knew who these people were: political desperadoes wrapped in the flag of apeaceful faith. It wasn't difficult to disavow them. The principal Muslim advocacy groups, from Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to the American Muslim Council (AMC) to Muslin1 Public Affairs Council (MPAC),all weighed in within hours against the perpetrators and on the side of the victims and democracy. New organizations sprang up over night, with names like Muslims Against Terrorism (w.matusa.org). But other American Muslims refused to believe that people who call themselves Muslims couId have done this Why? Vlas it the classic reluctance of a persecuted group to accept the worst about any of its members? Or was the penchant for conspiracy theories and the distrust of American government so pronounced among some Muslims that the simplest claims of the FBI and FAA were considered lies? I've heard both these explanations many times. Here is a third: that if Muslims admitted that other Muslims had committed such atrocities, then all Muslims would be tarred with the brush of guilt by association. I tend to favor this third explanation, because nothing fuels denial quite like fear, and because in America these days guilt by association is as common as the Lincoln penny And that led to my third set of feelings, a an American who ha become a Muslim. Within a few days I began to feel the old, familiar disgust tharis my usual response to the antics of many white Americans when given half a chance to hate somebody. I use the word 'white' intentionally here, for most Muslims in America are colored. In my experience, American Islamaphobia is largely racial, partly political, and only at the margins theological. In the first week after. 911 I , thanks to the daily television news, I saw pigs' blood thrown at the door of a mosque in San Francisco. I saw three hundred marchers waving flags and shouting "USA'as they tried to descend on a mosque in suburban Chicago. I saw a disturbed individual wearingwhat appeared to be a bomb in the parking lot of a Muslim school in Silicon Valley I heard gunshots in Texas. I saw mosques vandalized in Washington D.C. 1 read electronic hate mail flooding the chat boards of ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN. (Example: "It's time to eradicate Islam.") I thought of Gandhi's sage remark: '2r1eye for an eye - and soon everyone will be blind." I thought of one of ~uhammad's many prayers: "May God grant us sudden good and protect us from sudden evil." 168 TbeJournal of Islu~nic Law dnd CuINre [Val 7:1 Spring/Surnmcr 20021 Ar the Smoke Began to CIeur 169 My initial though& were complex and confused. My initial fielings were clearer, more singular. They were defined by sadness for the victim$ families, on the one hand, and on the other, by a deep resentment for the chcap theologizing that allows ~ e o p l e with grievances to justify making others grime. In the English language, you addrm a grievance. Or you redresr it. You don't drown it in jet fuel and call the act heroic Suicide, killing civilians, the wanton destruction of property, assaulting the fabric of society are all crimes under Islamic Law. I'm not sure what to call people who fight that way. That they call themselves model Muslilns is absurd. The word 'Islam' in the mouth of terrorist sounds like the word 'love' in the mouth of a hooker. On Saturday September the 16th, an e-mail reached me, fonvarded by a stranger. It was written by an Afghan American named Tamim Ansari. At the height of the nation's confusion, in a dozen paragraphs, Ansary, a San Francisco writer, had the courage and good sense to explain some simple facts to people who knew next to nothing about his birthplace. Well before public opinion gelled, Ansay described bin Laden as "a political criminal with a plan," the Taliban as a 'cult of ignorant psychotics," and the people of Afghanistan as rheir first victims. In the process of recommending American military restraint, this American citizen born in Kabul pointed out that Afghanistan had already been bombed back into the Stone Age, by Russian soldiers twenty years before. And he supplied some chilling statistics. Recently, he wrote, the United Nations had "estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanisvan - a country with no economy, no food. There are millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in mass graves. The soil is liltered with land mines, the farms were all destroyed by the Soviets." Ansary's message reached several million people around the world. What kept it moving like lightning across the worldwide web was its tone -that of a living, feeling human being. In the next few months, Ansary wrote a worthwhile memoir too, both for its candor and for the window it provides on life in a traditional Afghan family. The book appeared quickly. I was able ro find it in a bookstore six months after the September acracks.1 Here and around the world today, rage remains the emotion-of-choice for people who find themselves victimized by forces beyond rheir control. In cerrain quarters, desperate spokesmen waving the flag of this or that Higher Cause have raised suicide-with-murderous-intent to the status of martyrdom. I'm not speaking here of dying in protest, of third century Christian zealots martyring themselves, or of Buddhist self-immolations in Viet Nam I'm talking about dying by acts designed to take some of your opponents with you, often civilians who have no more control over where they live than you do. Lately, this group includes parties as diverse as Tamil freedom fighters, Timothy McVeigh, and the September 1 Ith hijackers. I The practice is not peculiar to Islam. It may even be argued that thirty years ago there was no such practice in Muslim countries. Today, there is. In the last few years especially, economic oppression, personal hunliliarion, hypocritical leadership, and the promise of lifellong support for suryiving dependents has motivated a growing number of individual Muslims to become walking bombs. The religious reward can't be discounted either. Abdullah Azzam, a Bin Laden mentor, for example, used up a lot af ink glorifying 'martyrdom' as an acceptable life-goal and promising virgins in Paradise to those who succeed. This is how propagandists of every stripe use traditional religious narratives to authorize modern, nonreligious goals. Those who set out to destroy the Enemy 2nd indead derrroy themlves are on the increase everywhere these days. Slobadan Milosovic, who led the Serbian people into a moral ditch, is one example. The people behind tht: 9/11 attacks represent another. Most of what I know about {he machinations of Al-Qeda comes from readlng articles and essays. ' Tamim koray, W UaJ New Yoik Ed~tf U u l . New York:Farrar, Straws, and Giroux, 2002. L o 170 TheJournal $lskmic Law and Cuiriirr [Vol 7 :1 Spring/Sumrner 20021 As rhe SmokcBegan to Clear 171 In one recent piece published in England,' Navid Kermani remarks that, "The terrorists' appropriation of a religious tradition is fundamentally no different from the way in which the Fascists made use of the obvious colistnict of an Aryan-German primeval history. It has scarcely more to do with the real history of the Sunni Arab wodd than has the Valhalla mythology of the Nazis with real temernbered German history The images may bc old, traditional or archaic, but the use of them is decidedly modern. "Comparisons come to mind such as the Una-bomber, the Aum sectand, above all, Timothy McVeigh...(who), in particular, seen~ed positively obsessed with destroying himself in the framework of a huge media event." Kermani goes on to note that Osama bin Laden employed a '"prophetic setting and antiquated rhetoric" in his post September 11th video appearances, conjuring up the linguistic impression of a ttadition. This, despite the fact that "the real heirs of the theological tradition speak quite different1y...." In remarking on Bin Laden's interpretation of Islam, Kermani reminds us, "The unity of state and religion that he probably has in mind is alleged to be a sine qua nan of Islam, although the idea only took shape with the development of the nation-srate in the nineteenth century." This seems a clear gloss on how modern extremists of all kinds dress their eccentric objectives in the trappings of tradition and authority. Like Milosevic's self-serving version of the 14th century Battle of Kosovo, Bin Laden tries to validate his bid For power by expressing it in the style and terms of the Prophet Muhammad's life. The success of these strained attempts to gull their target populations (Serbs, for Milosovic, disenfranchised Muslims around the wodd, for Bin Laden) is perhaps the most tragic aspect of our time. One,example should suffice to show how Bin Laden and his propagandists wrap their bid for power in the story of Muhammad. The centerpiece of their (false) analogy goes Like this: Since within a few decades of Muhamn~sd's demise in the 7th century, Islam, a faith and a social system developed in the remote desens of Arabia, "replaced" the two dominant world powers of rhe period, the warring Byzantine and Persian empires, and since fourteen hundred years later the Afghan mujiadin(with cruaal help from that true son of Arabia, Mr. Bin Laden) expelled one of the 20th century's two dominant world powers, the Soviet Union, from their borders, therefore (the theory goes), AI-Qeda and their constituents around the world have a theological fiat to attack and destroy the other world power, America, by any means available, while reminding us in the process that their assault is in keeping with the ethical teachings of Muhammad the Prophet. I had been working on a documentary film about Muhammad For nvo years, when the hijacked airplanes slammed into their targets, and I had read numerous biographies of him by then. Consequently, I felt sickened to hear Bin Laden and his propagandists alluding to the Prophet out of cdntext, drawing cheap historical analogies to bolster their ideology, and lacing their comments with fragments from the Qur'an. Here are two quotations. one from the Prophet Muhammad and on< from the Qur'an, that Bin Laden and his lieutenants seem never to have heard: Thegedrrrt memicr of God dre those who are entmd into blam and ye^ commlt unfithfil deeds and shed the blood $people withom c s m Muhammad. For each one o f 3 . o ~ (several religiollr communiti'cr) We have appointed a Law and a Wdy of Lfe. g G o d had so willed, He would have made all of;iou one communig, but He h a not donc so, in order that He may tcrtyou in what He h6.rgivm~ou;socompete ingoodnm To God shaNyou all return dndHe will tellyou (the Truth) about the things over which you have bem disputin~ The Holy Qur'an, 5:48. In the weeks and months after Septernber I Ith, when people asked me what I "thought of Islam now," I tried to remind them that AI-Qeda's agenda was not religious, that its goal was not to liberate people or alleviate suffering but rather to divide and sow confusion, to overthrow reglmes and acquire resources - for example, the Saudi monarchy and its oil. Where Bin Laden's personal motives were concerned, I argued that his real drive was Oedipal. Navid Kermanl, 'A. Dynamrre of the Spirit Why Nieksche, not the Koran, is the key to understanding the suicide bombers," in The Times Literary Supplement,March 29. 2002. pp. 13-15. 172 a heJournal of lslamic Law and Culture [Vol 7:l Now and then in his videotaped addresses, Bin Laden laid the plight of Islam at the door of 'the Jews.' This sort of tripe on the lips of a Muslim should incense any Muslim who hears it. Here we have Islam, the equity-based religion par ercellence, being publicly deployed by a ~rivilegedoutcast to scapegoat a people whose faith Muhammad honored. If he means to blame rhe Israeli government, then he should say so. I wish Bin Laden had only been speaking for himself. Rather, he was out to play on a nerve that runs close to the surface throughout the Middle East. The importation of European anti-Semitism into the Middle East is tragic and ironic. It entered Muslim intellectual circles in the 19th Century with the German-Turkish and French-Syrian alliancrs. Since the advent of Israel fifty years ago, it has leaked unchecked through the popular press into the Middle Eastern streets. Today, the obviously conirived "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," (a Russian import from 19th century France), are easy to download in the Persian Gulf, and governmenr-sanctioned newspapers routinely team with racist vitriol. Like anyone who listens, I have heard horrible things said by Arabs and lsraelis about each other fac decades. Each person will have to find his moment to draw the Line. For me, the time came a few years during ago, Friday prayers in the Prophet's mosque in Madinah. A traveling companion, the filmmaker Omar Al-Qttan, and I were sitting through a particularly energetic sermon in Arabic, of which I understood just a few words. Later, walking the streets of a town where Islarn's first community was born, Omar alluded to the imam's sermon. I said, "What was he saying?" "Oh, the usual," Omar replied. "He s said: 'The Jews are ruining;he region. All good ~ u s l i i must attack the Jews."' This was not only personally disuessing. The imam of the Madinah mosque was forcibly dragging lslam outside its own history. For over the centuries, Islam's inherent respect for other faiths has been the main institutional influence that prevented Muslim regimes from lstanbul to Delhi to Jakarta from scapegoating .their minority populations. Laws derived from the Quian, elaborated by the early Caliphs, developed and refined in Spain, and applied for centuries throughout the Ottoman Empire gave Jews in Muslim lands under Muslim law the kinds of rights and legal autonomy that Jews in Europe rarely dreamed of, These laws protected Jews individually and as a people, making it possible for [hem to reach at universities and serve in the highest ievels of government, i Spring/Summer 20021 As the Smoke Besun to Cledr 171 to the benefit of all. Today, somc Muslims seem to believe that their group is a vast moral improvement on the rest of humanity. If acceptance of others is any measure, I'd have to disagree. Although Islamic law and ingrained Muslim manners (adab)kept prejudices more or less in check for cenruries, a hard look at the without their traditional restraints world today should tell you that Musli~ns are in danger of behaving as badly ns anyone. What distinguishes islam, in theory, is its inherent quest for justice and a pluralistic vision. These strengths seem designed to thrive in America, where almost everyone comes from somewhere else. But abroad, in the dictatorships of the Middle East for example, what hope do minority populations have of a prosperous future? Jews, Copts, Zoroastrians, gypsies, even Muslim Kurds and Shiites on the wrong sides of various borders are in increasingly desperate circumstances, thanks to Muslim regimes. It is tragic to see Islam's respectful restraints being loosened. Muslimi say, "But Israel1 But Indial But the Russiansi" Muhammad taught us to win over opponents, not revile thcm. To encounter rage and drivel in Madinah's premier mosque, where Muhammad and his companions walked, should irritate any r Muslim with a brain. But to find the same thing in o ~ own bookrm home is more galling. For years, Muslims in America have been handing out copies of their favorite book, the Qur'an, to Americans of other faiths, hoping to be better understood. Unfortunately, the most widespread English trar~slationof the book Muslims live by is also the most misleading and full of errors. Popularly known as the Khan translation,' this edition has been distributed free by its publishers and devotees for years, so that by now it is virtually inridled in American mosques across the country This is the usual translation from which pundits often read on television when they want to prove that Islam is violent, anti-Semitic, and oppressive. No need here to cite chapter and verse. Just mn down to your local mosque and pick up a copy. For a further discussion of the KhanTranslation, see the anicle, "Playmg iilto rhe Hands of the Exuemirtrl'by D r Roben D. Crane, i.1 ThrAmrimMwIbN~mrk Iswe #9,Januav 2002. Available anline at www.thcamrricanmuslim.org 174 TheJoumd of Isldmic LW and Cullure [Vol 7:l Spring/Surnmer 20021 AS th<Smoke Begn to Clear 175 The Khan translation of the Qur'an is not the only version that contains egregious errors. What should Muslims like myself, who can't read Arabic, do? Some years ago, 1 put this quesrion to a Saudi citizen. His reply surprised me. "1 grew up in Arab schools," he said. "But I never knew what the Qur'an was all about unt111 read an English translation. That's what broughr me back to Islam." he said. The translation he read was Muhammad Asad's, The Masdgp of the Qr'dn. Asad's Footnores will probably not be surpassed any time soon; the text, though sometimes cast in antique, King James Bible English, seems completely in keeping with the spirit of Islam. But the size of the book, due to the footnotes, makes ir unwieldy. One hopes a more portable edition will soon come content is along. Meanwhile, the closest I've come to discerning the ~ u r ' a n k through Asad. (The purely sonoral splcndor OF the Arabic is accessible via numerous CDs.) Only a few months after September I l t h , theLos Angeles Unified School District removed 300 copies of an English Qur'an from its school libraries for containing anti-Semitic statements in the appended commentary. The b o o b were donated by a local mosque, in a well meant effort to increase understanding of Islam among mainstream Americans. Alar. Some American hluslims believe Jews ate their great opponents, and vice versa. This conclusion is mostly based on Palestine and the battle for land and human rights that has been on the boii there for decades. The landslide of anti-Muslim materials pushed upon an uninformed public from pro-lsmeli organizations and pundih inside the U.S.A. is so much a partaf the landscape by now that it would take a concerted effott to remove it. Organizations like the Council on Islamic Education, based in Fountain Valley, California, have done a good job on thc cducational front, by forcing textbook publishers to confront the negative versions of Islamic history and culture once put forward as fact in public schools. Yer the main responsibility to set one's house in order must fall to the efforts of each group. It takes enormous humility to be part of any group these days. It is harder to be a Muslim after September I l t h , and it is harder ro belewish after Jenin, as iris harder to be Roman Catholic after widespread airing of sexual abuse among the priests. It is as though the world's three major monotheist religions are all being charged with dragging themselves kicking and screaming out of a nightmare and Into the twenty-first century American Judaism's beef with Islam is political, not religious. If American Muslims have theolo~icdlopponents, they more likely tesidc in evangelical Christian organizations such as World Tedm and Frontius, both of which focus on converting Muslims to Christ, (Fronrieri has 800 operatives in 50 Muslim countries). Then there is Columbia International University (C.I.U.), in South Carolina, one of three U.S.-based Christian schools that offer degrees in converting mu slim^.^ Many C.I.U. graduates are sent abroad by organizations like the Southern Baptist Convenrion, Christar, and the Arab World Ministries. These groups embrace a view that history is coming to an end and, consequently, Christ will soon reappear on Earth, though not before the last human being has accepted him as the savior and son of God. In their view, Islam is the main barrier to Christ's return. Hoping to hurry this Last Event along, they stalk the Muslim world in starch of converts. Is it possible that rather than respond to the concept of Jesus' Second Coming as an imminent challenge in their lives, the C.I.U. instructors with their diplomas in Muslim conversion have ironically assigned the labor of personal transformation to Mllrlim, and to born-again Christians like Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer, Evangelism's much publicized poster duq who were ejected from Afghanistan just before the Taliban fell from power? These young pawns were sent to Kabul at the tail end of a three-year famine, disguised as "aidworkers" and assigned to hawk their brand of salvatio~l Afghans, who . to never sought their teaching in the first place. As Bin Laden has forgotten his Qur'an, so these people seem to have mislaid their Gospel, as for instance where Peter reminds Christians, yes, to "give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect." (1 Pet. 3:15) Mark %sin, hoping to deflate the proselytizers of his own day, once remarked that, "Being noble is good. But telling other people to be noble is better. And no trouble at all." For a fuller trc~trnent this subject, see "False Pmpheu: Inside the Evangciical Christian of Islam," by Barry Yeoman with additional reporting by Vanessa Gezati in India, in MothrrJanrr, May/June 2002, p p 43-49. Movement t h a t aims r Eliminate o 176 Thqlbumal o I~lamic and Culture f Law [Vol 7:l Spring/Summer 20021 As the Smoke Begdn to CLear 177 It is easy enough to expose the excesses in Christian missionary work. But what about the doctrine, affirmed in some Muslim quarters, that Islam alone Leads to salvauon and that anyone who fails to accepr it is bound for He117 (See, for example, the Khan translation, where the sentence, "Whoever to seeks a religion other thdn submi~~ion God, it will never be accepted of him and in the Hereafter he will be among the losers," (3:85) becomes "Whoever seeks a religion othrr than Islam, it will be never be accepted," which, the Khan translation goes on to say, "abrogates" or trumps an "earlier verse" that reads, "Surely, those who believe, and those who are Jews and Christians whosoever believes in God and the Last Day and acts righteously, on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve." (5:69) In the year since September 11 th, mosques and Islamic Centers across the country have engaged in more exchanges with people and institutions of other faiths than over the entire preceding decade. Every Sunday for months after the attacks, mosque parking lots in Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley and Atlanta were jammed with cars belonging to visitors from neighboring churches and synagogues. The interfaith open-house became almost as regular an affair as the jumma prayer. Everywhere one went, and in every mosque one heatd about, Muslims were reaching out to soothe their shock, share their solidarity, and convey Islam's common ground with other faiths. Of all the ways that the attacks on New York and Washington changed American Islam, this may be the most profound. The tragic events of September 1 lth ended years of Muslim isolation in America, as long pent-up desires to break the a'verage Muslim's sense of otherness found expression in a natural urge to share communal grief and draw together in a tragedy Had the 9/11 perpetrators foreseen this outcome, t h y would probably have stayed at home that Tuesday. One measure of Islam's maturity in the years ahead will be the degree to which we continue to partner with other religions to work together for the comnlon good. In that sense, September llthwas a beginning we can't afford in to end. There is really no cho~ce this matter. America is a pluralist society If Muslims remain true to their watch words, eschewing compulsion in religion. makmg relations with others easy rather than dificult, then [slam's long term prospects here are good. Just as one value of rel~gionis its capacity to draw good out of evil, so the events of September 11th should lead America's Muslims to put into pmaice the social ethics of their faith, not in some future Utopia or dreamland Caliphate, but here and now in New Jersey, in Birmingham, in Dearborn, in Denver, in L.A. About two hundred years ago, America experienced a forty-year period of reIigious and spiritual florescence that must have astonished people living then. It is certainly astonishing to read about, today.5 A populist evangelical revival, the Awakening took place in New England and upstate New York between 1800 and 1840. It was a mass movement, anti-institutional in tenor, often sparked by the enthusiasm of an individual or a small group. For example, with the appointment of Henry Ware as Harvard's Hollis Professor of Divinity in 1805, "the whole colIege converted to Unitarianism, a creed based on a belief in the innate moral goodness of the individual (in reaction to Calvinism, which was a creed founded on a belief in the innate moral depraviv of thc individualJn6As the Awakening moved west, it gave life to a host of new denominations: the Methodist Church became the largest in the nation during this period: The Disciples of Christ, Universalism, Adventism, many Baptist churches, and the Afiican-American church all emerged then, toa The Abolitionist movement grew out of the Awakening, and so did the temperance movement and women's right, along with a host of utopian and religious sects, including the lviormons. This movement accomplished what Louis Menand calls the "democratization a of European Christiani~, massive absorption into American popular culture of the Protestant spiritual impulse, stripped of most of.its traditional hierarchies and formalities."' A second interesting piece of history For today's American Muslims to consider is the development of Conservative and Reform Judaism, accomplished in New York and Cincinnati in the previous century. The more extreme modThe following brief description dcpeuds on Louis Menand, Tlx MMp,$icai Club: A St09 of Idm in America, (New York: Farrar S t r m and Giroux, New York, 2W1), pp. 12, 79-81. For a fuller treatment of the subject, see: Nathan 0.Hatch, rilrDcmooahzu1ion of Amvicar C/,rjiinnig ( N e w Haven: Yale Universiry Press, 1989),and Jon Butler. Awdiil in u Sca of Faith: C l ~ r u ~ ~ d n i z i n g ~ lPeopk ~ n ~ ~ c ~ Mass: Harvard Universiy Press, ~ c A (Cambridge, 1990),among orhers Menand, p. 12. Mcnand, p 81 178 TheJoumal of Isldmic Law and Cullure (Vol71 i j 1 I i i I ification, Reform Judaism, occurred first. It originated in Germany and spread to the U.S. in the 1840s, under the leadership of Rabbi Isaac M. Wise. Today, most American Jews follow these modifications of the Orthodox approach: Reform Judaism permits men and women to sit together in group prayer, incorporates music into religiou services, rejects suia dietary laws, and permits normal activities on the Sabbath. It also supports traditional customs and the liturgical use of Hebrew, although the standard prayer book is biling~al.~ Conservative Judaism, a later reaction, mediates between the Reform and Orthodox approaches, accepting the Reform interest in critical scholarship but maintaining stricter observance of Jewish Law,including dietarj strictures. It became an institutionalized movement in the United States in 1886, after decades of regional development. I doubt there are many Muslims today who would view any of these developments as applicable to the future of Islam. Still, it is worth knowing what time and culture have brought about for other major monotheistic traditions here in the New World. Immigrants come to America insearch of better lives, but it is dimcult to imagine, starting out, how different a life American society imposes on your body and your soul - and, even more so, on your children. No need to rehearse Franr Boas's century-old ideas on the great plasticity of human types. By now, most people understand that, like the finch and the cockroach, mankind is naturally adaptable, and not only physically. The capacity of any large group with internal differences to develop new cultural forms is all but inevitable. IF you think that jumping between continents can't transform you, think again. Although some Muslims reject the rerm "American Islam," the fact remains that without a faith shaped to ground one in this country, the risk of being swamped, emotionally, socially, spiritually, is very high. A person doesn't anchor that sort of faith by eating wit11 the right hand and never with the left, or adhering to cultural norms from other centuries. You gain chat ground by putting core values into practice - of compassion, sacrifice, and gratitude, for instance. Islam is more than a set of values; it is a practice, One aspect of Wise's platform war not to be incorporated: his staunch opposition to esrablishic~ga Jewish stale in Palestine, which he considered wrong-headed and incangruenr I Syring/Summer 20021 As the Smoke Began to Ckar 179 one that has survived through balanced adaptation in hundreds of cultucll contexts worldwide. Now, it is searching for ways to practice itself through American Muslims. How that will look in a hundred years is anybody's guess. One thing seems certain: Its ways will not be exactly the ways of Baghdad, Islamabad, or Riyadh. To develop your practice enough to serve you, any "nev? Muslim needs mentors. Before September I lth, the most usual form of mentorship among American Muslims was emulation of the "imported" model, 3s practiced chiefly by Arab and South Asian Muslim arrivals. In post-9/11 America, we may see this arrangement become a two way street. Faced with stepped up national security concerns at the Justice Department, FBI and INS, immigrant Muslims have some critical lessons to learn from the indigenous American Muslim community, especially those Americans traditionally engaged in the tight for civil rights. For after all, Mican Americans (40% of America's Muslim population) possess a lot of hard won expertise in exactly the kinds of legalistic indignities now bcing endured by immigrant Muslims all over the country, including racial profiling, unlawful arrest. and prolonged detention without evidence. Immigrant Muslim residents who find their rights unduly co~npromised in the rush toward increased National Security are wisely seeking the suppon of homegrown American Muslirns, who have battled for their civil rights before. It's about time. ! I Septembq 2001 "This is my brother. We know he? here somewhere. Wrjust don? know wherc." - A woman holding a photo in the streets of Manhattan. 'This is my mothv. She l~ us d voice mail We're wditingfor h n to cbN w back.. - A rnan holding a photo in the streets of Manhattan. Aher the explosions and cries of mourning died away, the most sickening noise, to my ears, has been the whine of interest groups and politicians, both Muslim and other, restarting the machinery of their agendas. 1had thought the period after September 11th might be an opportune time for people on all sides of the power struggle, from immigrant Muslims to empire-builders in Wash- with Judaism's universal mission. 180 TheJoumal of fsiamic Law and Culture [Val 7:1 i I Spring/Sumrner 10021 Ar the Smoke Bgan to Ciedr 181 ington, Moscow, New Delhi, and Beijing to step away from their territorial doctrines and strategic policies long enough to establish thoughdul goals. Instead, within a couple months, we returned to ingrained behavior, to Us vs. Them and Business As Usual. What particularly repulsed me was seeing the same old rhetorical machinery of the Higher Cause being rolled out yet again before the cameras and the microphones. In the wake of Bin Laden's hollow claims on behalf of the Palestinian cause, For example, how could anyone ignore the irony as various governments around the world began to sharpen their knives on the stone of America's vaunted War on Terrorism? How could people believe the empty claims of leaders like Vladimir Putin or the even more predictable Ariel Sharon as they rushed to re-christen long standing, regional wars of hegemony as up-dated chapters in the War on Terrorism? This outmoded, antediluvian need to bolster nationalist claims and increase one's side of the foreign-aid ledger has by now all but swamped the complex reality we continue to inhabit. For all the talk of 3 new world order we are being dragged by main force back into a plrantom version of the old Cold War. My own allegiance is not with either side of Bin Laden's false dichotomy between secular Western Capitalism and some cock-eyed moral high ground he calls Islam, nor is it with George Bush's War on Terrorism as expressed in the statement that one is either with him ot against him. In terms of September l l t h , my allegiance is with the Dead. Months afrer I wrote a short poem. In the first four lines, I tried to fix a September image that srill haunts me: of lines of people walking Lower Manhattan in search of loved ones they wouldn't find. They moved through the streets like bearers without palls. 1 suppose I was trying to enunciate an allegiance based, not on religion or culture, but on shated human loss. Since there is no proper way to end an essay on this subject (because reflections upon tragedy go on and on), perhaps :he best I can do is switch Formats from to stanzas. Here, as a makeshift ending, is what I wrote: THE BEARERS Now they are standing in the road, And now t h y aep down through a gash That we( a door once, ash underfDot And glasx about thrir heah in d m 9 halos. I'm going to wdik with them a whiit. The wife who heard the phone callf e d And told 6v kidr, He'll be homesoon Coer beride me, echoing innde. An o d k j l k d our 6earshot shaher Theforat When buildirigrfill, a tunnel Fom, and voica r n q e with mapshoh Pinned to people's chests, W are oniookers e No longer.A pinched candle coih In myforehead We are bearns In a counhy joined by ssilmt scremr, Thinking as t h g go rherc, We an with you.

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