Religion & Civic Activism in the North American Muslim Diaspora Community
In this series, the VISIONS blog will post excerpts from the Report on Engaging Sectarian De-Escalation based on the "Proceedings of the Symposium on Islam and Sectarian De-Escalation at the Harvard Kennedy School."
Moderator: Hassan Abbas
Panelists: Daisy Khan, Hasnain Walji, Arif Asaria, Rahat Husain
Summary:
This panel, entitled Religion & Civic Activism in the North American Muslim Diaspora Community, the topic of Muslim civic participation and sectarianism in North America are examined, contextualized, and compared to that of Middle Eastern countries. The pluralism and lack of Muslim sectarian tensions in the United States is presented by some commentators as a case study, marking how a lack of sectarian bias in the creation and imple- mentation of policy and law is a key metric for a more peaceful society. Pathways to de-escalation of sectarianism are also highlighted by community activists, modeling how small, local projects can grow to have formidable, alleviating impacts across the globe.
Hassan Abbas
This panel is entitled “Religion & Civic Activism in the North American Muslim Diaspora Community.” Islam is not new to America. We often hear about Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an. A significant population of African American slaves were Muslim. This new lens of security, whether caused by geopolitics or the tragedy of 9/11, has forced all of us to view Islam in a different sense. But Islam is more than just a security threat. It has artistic, cultural, and academic contributions. In this panel, we’ll hear from Muslims who represent diverse communities across the United States and Canada. We’ll hear about some of the activities at the ground level. When Prophet Muhammad was in his final days, walking from Medina to Mecca, he continuously repeated three sentences. Spread peace. Feed the Hungry. In all that matters, approach God as the most merciful. He was not saying, “Feed the hungry Muslim,” but simply, “Feed the hungry.”
Daisy Khan
When I was two and a half years old, I was standing in my front yard as a little girl wearing boy shorts. I remember my father giving me a pair of boxing gloves that were as big as me. Years later, I asked my dad why he gave me them. He said that he knew that I, the youngest of three daughters, would be bullied. He wanted me to learn how to protect myself. That’s the world I came into. I was born in Kashmir, the predominant Muslim state in India. I was empowered by all the men in my family. Education was so important to my family that I was sent to the United States at the age of sixteen to pursue a degree in architectural design. But God has his plan, and my reality changed after 9/11.
I was married to an imam whose mosque was very close to Ground Zero. When Americans became curious about Islam, some of the most frequent questions was, “Explain the status of Muslim women. Where are your leaders? Why don’t you speak out? Why do you treat your women so badly?” Even though I explained that Muslim women had been entitled to great rights that western women hadn’t even dreamed of before the 7th century, it was falling on deaf ears. The images they were seeing around the world did not match what I was saying. My surrounding community asked what I intended to do about international issues, even though I, a 25 year-old architectural designer, was the least qualified candidate to mandate such work. What most people did not know at the time when they were asking these questions was that extremists had hijacked an entire world religion. They had defined a global agenda for all of us, and normal Muslims were feeling the consequences whether we liked it or not.
I realized that the only way to combat injustice was to construct religiously grounded arguments to lift the truth of Islam. I knew that there was a truth of Islam that had inspired 1400 years of great civilizations that was now lost in translation. If I did nothing, I was allowing the extremists to consolidate power, spread their influence, and subjugate women. My reality as an empowered, Muslim woman was going to be a minority view. Millions of women were being subjugated, and I was not going to stand for that. My father had given be boxing gloves for this exact purpose. I was always going to be carrying those invisible gloves with me.
We Americans have tried to defeat terrorists. Bombs have not worked. Drones have not stopped them. Sanctions have not helped. I know from experience that giving voice to women is our best chance to combat extremism. With the world witnessing a religious revival, Muslim women increasingly wanted to reclaim their God-given rights through a faith-based movement. Muslim women today are adding a very unique and critical voice. I know thousands of other women who are doing the kind of work that I’m doing in different pockets of global communities.
In 2006, I launched an effort called W.I.S.E. We created a global network of Muslim women who were change makers in their communities, and we brought them together. I canvassed the entire community and formed a Shura Council. The first Muslim woman Shura council was created in 2008, and we began to interpret our scripture. We found that our scripture was giving us the freedom that we had craved so badly.
Today, we are struggling all over the globe to combat extremism, and for decades, we have watched extremists unjustly take away innocent lives, destroy property, poison the minds of newer generations, and stifle critical thinking. I don’t care what you are, or whether you are a Shi’a or Sunni. We all believe the same thing, and our religion is being marred. The voices of the extremists on one side and the voices of the Islamophobes on the other have clogged the public opinion. There is an essential misunderstanding in the middle where we all stand.
We must first understand that conflating Islam with terrorism is very dangerous. It makes it harder for Muslims like myself to speak the truth about our religion and identity. You may be wondering why me, a professional woman? I am a professional, but I’m also very passionate about these causes. It just so happens that I’m a woman and a Muslim. I firmly believe that every religion, every race, everyone is impacted by extremism.
I am from Kashmir, a disputed territory since 1947. I know what it is like to flee for your life. There is a vacuum in leadership on these issues. It is because everyone seems to be analyzing the problem of terrorism, but very few are willing to do anything about it or cooperate with Muslims. There are conferences going on, yet I’m not invited. The stakes are way too high for this invitation to be enough. The time is right for a fresh approach.
This will require people of all faiths to work together. It must be done by peaceful means, for peace is the underlying spirit of all of our faiths. Only through educational awareness can we create long, lasting social change. My hope as a Muslim woman is that by using a different kind of force – the force of knowledge – we can clear misunderstanding. Knowledge can help us understand and deal with the roots of extremism that lead to violence. Correct knowledge of Islam will diminish injustice and discrimination. It will empower people to overcome their conditional biases and prejudices. For how many years has this issue continued? We have spent so much money on military and intelligence. We have even spent money on curbing finances. Not a single resource has been put at the disposal of Muslims to fight the ideology that is separating the Shi’a from the Sunni.
Then I set out to start my organization, we collaborated with seventy-two Muslim and non-Muslim scholars. I carefully looked at the diverse Muslim community that we have in the United States, and I listed to everybody.
I made sure everybody’s voice was heard. There was a Shi’a person who mentioned that we ought to make sure I didn’t have any Ismailis here. He mentioned that my project would be disregarded if I did. A Sunni hoped that I didn’t have any Shi’as. I listened to everybody in an effort to work together. Everyone was so eager to participate in this research. It took us twenty thousand hours, two full time staff members, ten bright interns, and five volunteers to assemble the document. It is authentic. It is evidence-based. It is my way of contributing to peace. It has graphics. It’s easy. It’s fun. And we put it together for you. Part one gives voice to American Muslims: who they are, what their history is, when they came to this country. Part two will provide the reader with a very clear distinction between Islamic theology and extremist ideology. In conclusion, it’s an easily acces- sible pool of knowledge about Islam. It’s a blueprint for positive change.
Hasnain Walji
Sectarian de-escalation conjures up three key words: serenity, courage and wisdom. To navigate in this turbulent sea of strife, these words can become beacons to guide us on this journey. Inspired by the Serenity Prayer, they can provide a roadmap to sectarian de-escalation:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.
The task ahead is gigantic and well-meaning activists feel dwarfed and often times feel powerless. But then wisdom prevails and we can muster enough courage to act to make a difference by changing things that we can.
With particular reference to grassroots engagement and civic activism, I wish to share some practical endeavors can and have yielded dividends. As evidenced by this very symposium, some critically constructive work is being done in academia and by religious leaders. Thought leadership from theological schools and academia can and does play a role in managing sectarian issues in communities.
However this thinking does not always filter down to the public square. This disconnect continues to exacerbate sectarian tensions in our local communities, fueled by geopolitical issues especially the tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran amongst others. Hence, the important role of civic activism is to close the gap between academia and the public square. Numerous ways and means of peace building and intrafaith deliberations need to be popularized to ensure such discussions take place at all levels of society.
This requires a framework to launch and sustain intrafaith platforms to move Muslim communities from tolerating each other to understanding each other. Amongst others, two key components of such a framework could be:
Capacity building programs for the khateebs (preachers) and imams towards more empathetic expressions from the pulpit using the established methodology of Emotional Intelligence (EQ), and other personal development tools. Additionally organizing focus groups and workshops to bring together like minded imams, khateebs and other religious leaders can help foster positive communication and discourage polemics and theatrics used by some to rile up audiences. These models exist and have had impact. This group has the greatest potential of making it or breaking it. Especially now that every minbar and podium has become a broadcast channel and pervades social media.
- A more holistic and inclusive curriculum accompanied by teacher development initiatives, at Sunday schools and other institutions that impart religious instruction to children and young people are a critical need with the greatest potential. The focus needs to be shifted on learning about a compassionate God rather than teaching about just do’s and don’ts.
The overall goal for the above initiatives is to foster an environment that emphasizes essence over form, which in turn can help mitigate many issues relating to the form of worship or cultural norms. Thought leaders can help generate peacebuilding conversations and help frame narratives that lead to the empathetic realization in the public square that ultimately we all seek His Pleasure and that one key value to earn His pleasure is to please His creatures.
In this day and age the Millenials do not have time or inclination for sectarian gymnastics and may well decide to throw the baby with the bath water and join the ranks of thousands if not millions of those who identify themselves as “spiritual but not religious,” who having been disenchanted with the trappings of the Christian faith moved away from faith altogether. North America has great potential in impacting the de-escalation process in the geopolitical arena. It needs to start within the Muslim Community at local and national levels. Both above programs have been implemented by NASIMCO and can be used as effective models in more diverse contexts.
Arif Asaria
I represent NASIMCO as Secretary General. NASIMCO stands for North American Shi’a Islam Muslim Communities Organization. We’re based out of Toronto and Minnesota and we have 22 centers that we represent. NASIMCO is an umbrella organization existing to serve and guide its constituent members to foster unity and promote religious education and social-economic advancement of the communities. It seeks to achieve this unity of purpose by coordinating resources, policies, and functions. That is, by facilitating the exchange of ideas and experiences, by channeling resources in support of individual member initiatives, and by liaising with Muslim and non-Muslim organizations, primarily within North America.
First of all I’m surprised to find myself in a lecture hall. When I was attending university, I was trying to avoid them as much as I could. I immigrated to Canada when I was twelve in 1977, and I became an Oreo: brown on the outside and white on the inside. I had no care for religion. As life went on, I met a beautiful woman and married her. I did not ask her religion. She happened to be Sunni. In university I studied philosophy and economics, and I found a way to make money. Everything was going well.
All of a sudden September 11th 2001 erupted onto the scene. All of a sudden things changed for me because of the color of my skin and my name. I was forced to rediscover myself within a community I could participate in. In 2007 I was blessed to be elected as a Secretary General of the local mosque. We were building a community center, and it was mired in problems. I didn’t need to know everything. Instead, we just started working. Eventually, we had a big, beautiful community center.
Even with this new facility, my community ousted me before I could change our ethos. My thought process was different to those around me. I was born here. I have actually lived here. I am not thinking in terms of Shi’a or Sunni, I am looking for ideas. I love people everywhere. When a hurricane hit Houston, everyone helped. No one asked the other if they were white or black, conservative or liberal. All were human. We want to help, and we feel better about ourselves when we help others. There’s no difference between a Sunni and a Shi’a. We are all here to help humanity. As the new Secretary General of the NASIMCO I made sure to promote such a goal within my work. Islam is not only in the mosque. Let’s learn from each other so we can make a better world for all of us.
Rahat Husain
I want to start my talk with a discussion about sectarian violence between the Sunni and Shi’a that resulted in multiple deaths in the early 90s. There were two groups in the Atlanta region that were local gangs. One of the gangs subscribed to Sunni ideology and the other gang to Shi’a ideology. They stated the reasons for their violence were religious, but they truly weren’t. The police didn’t classify it that way, the media didn’t classify it that way. Like other gangs in other cities, they engaged in violence, deaths resulted, and it wasn’t really an Islamic incident of sectarian violence even though the gangs might have thought of it that way.
Now, here in 2018 that seems absurd for a number of good reasons. None of us have a realistic fear or expectation of sectarian violence amongst Sunni and Shi’a. I think the United States is one of the model communities that the world should look at for relations between Muslims in their countries. What are the characteristics that allow this to be a model? Here in the United States, I work with UMAA as the advocacy director, and that involves working with the major Sunni organizations in the United States – Islamic Relief, ISNA, CAIR, NPACK, Concordia, and Engaged. They have been very much focused on having Sunni and Shi’a work together.
But the relationship of Sunnis and Shi’as in other countries bears a lot of similarities to political polarization. There is an identity issue associated with certain political topics. For example, the Democrats and Republicans disagree on a great deal of issues: abortion and prayers in schools to name a few. But are these truly the ideas that the Democratic and Republican parties were founded with? Or are they later causes that were picked up and associated with these parties? The same things happen with Sunni and Shi’a. They adopt political ideologies and preferences and viewpoints, and then internalize them as part of their religious view-point.
We have disagreements here in America. We have them here at this conference. But there’s no feeling that Sunnis and Shi’as hate each other in America. I think this can be attributed to the fact that Sunnis and Shi’as are politically equal in power. American Muslims are equivalent to each other in their ability to change the law. They are equivalent in India. They are equivalent in South America. It is not just peaceful in the sense that there is no violence, but there is also intermarriage. I think political power plays an important role. In some countries like Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, the legislative inequality in enacting economic or social policies results in resentment and hatred.
That’s not to say that just because there is disparate political power there has to be sectarianism. In fact, there are many interesting examples of countries where there are significant sectarian issues. In some cases, there is even violence or oppression. In 2014 the Shi’a community of Medina had a meeting with the self-referential Salafi governor of the city. The governor said, and I quote, “It is an honor to visit this tribe.” About a month or two later a Saudi newspaper said they appreciated Shi’a attitudes on nonviolence. In Pakistan in one of the regional tribal areas, several village elders held meetings on how they can prevent violence from occurring to Shi’as during their Muharram processions. Here in the United States, UMAA collaborated with ISNA, MPAC, CAIR, and other organizations to sign an interfaith code of honor in which these organizations not only pledged to work together but to accept each others’ identities in holding religious beliefs and with the commitment of mutual respect and collaboration.
Even in Iraq where the rise of ISIS has caused significant sectarianism, you still see opportunities for Sunnis and Shi’as to come together in a very positive way. There was an example about two years ago where Ayatollah Sistani invited internally displaced peoples of Iraq to a common residence in the cities of Najaf and Karbala and other cities to stay at the shrine, and provided free housing to them. You can see other examples of Sunni communities doing the same, where they provide assistance to Shi’as who are in need throughout Iraq and other regions. The take-away from my message is that there are absolutely sectarian issues in so many places; but more interestingly, and more shockingly, and more inspiringly, there are incidents where sectarianism has been abated to such a significant degree that it is an inspiration. This is the narrative that should be promulgated in the media and amongst our communities.
Captions
Figure 1. Friday prayer in Tehran - March 16, 2018 (Wikicommons).
Figure 2. Muslim pilgrims prepare to return home at the end of Hajj (Wikicommons).
Figure 3. Shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf, Iraq (Wikicommons).