NAZIM BAKSH

Carnival ofCaricatures MUHAMMAD AL-YAQOUBIOn Returning to God

SUMA DINThe Promise and Perilof the Nasheed Industry

SEAN GALLAGHERMuslim China’s Modern Face

HRH THE PRINCE OF WALESCelebrating a Common Treasure

AMINA NAWAZHeckling for Allah

MAY 2006|RABI’ AL-THANI 1427|NO.366UK£2.50 |US$5.00 |RM10.00

Habib Ali al-Jifri

The Mercy Warrior

Q-NEWS | 3

EDITORIAL

Perhaps the biggest challenge facing Muslims in con-temporary times is to enunciate the role and statusof the Prophet Muhammad, upon whom be bless-

ings and peace, in the religious consciousness of Muslims.As the Danish caricature fiasco has shown, failure tounderstand, appreciate and respect the high regard allMuslims have for their Prophet has led to a lot of misun-derstanding, pain and conflict.

To a certain extent the problem is historical: no otherhistorical figure has had such bad press in the West as theProphet of Islam. From the Middle Ages up to very recenttimes, depiction of him in European controversial litera-ture has been obnoxious, depraved and irresponsible.This, coupled with the culture of cynicism, has desperate-ly clouded the minds of most Westerners from under-

standing the great importance of Muhammad in Muslim religious life.Failure to comprehend the reasons and depth of Muslim veneration for the Prophet is a seri-

ous flaw in appreciating the essence of Islam. It is the love of the Prophet that makes the faithextraordinary: it is the spontaneous human emotion, repressed at some point by the austerity ofthe doctrine of God as developed in theology, that has its full outlet - a warm human emotionwhich the peasant can share with the mystic, the learned with the student.

Modern men, especially those who come from a secularised Christian background, find it dif-ficult to understand both the veneration of the Prophet, peace be upon him, and his role as theprototype of Muslim religious and spiritual life. The reason for this difficulty is that the spiritu-al nature of the Prophet is hidden in his human one and his purely spiritual function is hiddenin his duties as the guide of men and the leader of a community. It was the function of theProphet to be, not only a spiritual guide, but also the organiser of a new social order with allthat such a function implies. And it is precisely this aspect of his being that veils his purely spir-itual dimension from foreign eyes.

Outsiders have understood his political genius, his power of oratory, his great statesmanship,but few have understood how he could be the religious and spiritual guide and how his life couldbe emulated by those who aspire to sanctity. This is particularly true in the modern world inwhich religion is separated from other domains of life and most modern men can hardly imag-ine how a spiritual being could also be immersed in the most intense political and social activi-ty.

Today, however, the biggest responsibility for Muslims is to redress the situation. But we canonly convince our neighbours of the status and honour of the Prophet, peace be upon him, if wehonour him ourselves first. Qadi ‘Iyad ibn Musa al-Yahsubi points out that someone who lovesa person prefers them and prefers what they like. Otherwise, he is a pretender, insincere in hislove. Someone who has true love of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, willmanifest the following signs - “that he will emulate him, apply his sunnah, follow his words anddeeds, obey his commands and avoid his prohibitions and take on his adab in ease and hardship,joy and despair.”

No other aspect of Islam is more powerful, more potent and more attractive than our love forthe Messenger of God for it reflects our status, represents our reality and ensures our Hereafter.And there is no better way of preparing and nurturing this love - and expressing it - than throughthe mawlid, the celebration of the Prophet’s birthday.

Muslims, particularly those living in the West, must harness their intellectual and creativeresources and find new imaginative ways in which to articulate and share our love for the“Mercy upon mankind” with our neighbours. It should be clear among our young people thatlove of the Prophet is incumbent upon all and especially those who aspire towards a life of suc-cess. This love must not be understood in an individualistic sense. Rather, we love the Prophetbecause he symbolises that harmony and beauty that pervades all things, and displays in theirfullness those virtues, the attainment of which allow man to realise his theomorphic nature.

“Lo! Allah and His angels shower blessings on the Prophet, O ye who believe! Ask blessings onhim and salute him with a worthy salutation” [33:56]

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66 VVooxx PPooppuulliiQQ--RReeaaddeerrss take on the Danish cartooncontroversy the Muslim reaction, Afghanapostasy, anti-semitism and the Gay-Muslim divide.

99CCllaassssiicc QQIItt’ss tthhee nnaattuurraall wwaayy!!TTaawwffiiqq KKhhaann says like he sees it: boysand girls are different, and no amount ofsocial engineering or verbal tinkering canchange alter that. Fair enough, but whatdoes he actually mean?

1100 UUppffrroonnttTThhee SSuullttaann’ss EElleepphhaannttA extarordinary theatrical event -fantastical, mechanical and counterin-tuitive - takes to London streets. Prepareto be amazed and enchanted.

1111DDiiaarryyAAmmiinnaa NNaawwaazz on London’s dwindlingSamaritans, growing old and the dangersof mixing coffee and procrastination.

1122QQ--NNootteessRReemmeemmbbeerriinngg AAllii FFaarrkkaa TToouurree;;CCeelleebbrraattiinngg MMuusslliimm wwoommeenn;; aannddAAyyaaaann HHiirrssii AAllii ggeettss hheerr ttoonngguuee iinn aakknnoott aaggaaiinn..

1155SSccrruuttiinnyyWWhhoo’ss tthhee mmoosstt kknnoowwiinngg tthhiinnkkeerr ooff aallll??Mohamed M. Husain on which publicMuslim intellectual deserves our ear.WWhheenn hheecckklleerr rruuiinn aa ggoooodd nniigghhtt.. AminaNawaz takes on her local loud-mouthMuslim hecklers and finds that a defttouch and bit of wisdom go a long way.SSoo wwhhoo’ss lliivviinngg iinn tthhee ‘gghheettttoo’ nnooww??Farish Noor find on why Europeanintellectuals are obsessed with whetherMuslim go to the opera or not. “HHeerreennootthhiinngg iiss ssaaffee;; tthheerree iiss nnoo ffrreeeeddoomm””..Chris Sands reports from Afghanistan onthe state of religiosu freedom in theaftermath of the Abdul Rahman apostasycase. WWhhyy II wwiillll nnoott sseenndd mmyy cchhiillddrreenn ttooaann IIssllaammiicc sscchhooooll.. Farzina Alam recallsher eager rush to experience spiritualenlightenment at a Muslim faith school.Years later, she is still jaded by theexperience.

2233MMuusslliimm CChhiinnaa’ss MMooddeerrnn FFaacceeSSeeaann GGaallllaagghheerr is a photographer whochronicles the intersection of the sacredand the profane, the ancient and themodern. His remarkable picturesdocument the coming-out ofcontemporary Islam in China.They showa confident people who aren’t afraid towear the faith on their sleeve.

RReemmeemmbbeerriinngg AAllii FFaarrkkaa TToouurree,, PPaaggee 1100

MMuusslliimm CChhiinnaa’ss mmooddeerrnn ffaaccee,, ppgg 2233

Q-NEWS | 5

aesthetics and beauty in the builtenvironment. It’s something, hecontends, Islamic civilisation has a lotto say about.

5500WWrriittee MMiinndd:: WWhhaatt IInntteerrnnaattiioonnaallCCoommmmuunniittyy?? FFaarriisshh NNoooorr puts on hisdetective cap and searches for themysterious International Community.

documentary examining a family ofKurdish Muslim “quadrupeds” adisturbing attempt to legitimisescientific voyeurism.

BBooookkss:: IInnffrraassttrruuccttuurreeMMuujjaaddaadd ZZaammaann finds that BrianHayes’ examination of the urbanlandscape provides a much-neededstarting point for re-examining

2277“WWee ddoo iitt bbeeccaauussee wwee lloovvee GGoodd”The Right Revd DDaavviidd GGiilllleetttt,, Chairof the nascent Christian MuslimForum says he and his partners areundeterred by their critics.This is apartnership of equals whosemembers are under no illusions -they have a long road to travelbefore they earn the legitimacy theydesire.

3300CCaarrnniivvaall ooff CCaarriiccaattuurreessMuslims are told being laughed at isthe price you have to pay to beincluded in modern society.It’s timeto think again. NNaazziimm BBaakksshh exploresthe deadly politics of humour.

3344TThhee DDaayy tthhee MMuussiicc DDiieeddAre contemporary Muslimsperformers recreating the same MTV-style hype that their brand ofreligiously-inspired music wassupposed to spurn? With nasheedmusic become increasingly slick andcorporate, SSuummaa DDiinn reports on agrowing concern that this promisingindustry has lost its bearings.

4422TThhee LLoossss ooff aa CCoommmmoonn TTrreeaassuurreeA remarkable group of people cameto honour the legacy of the late DrZaki Badawi. In his moving eulogy,HHRRHH TThhee PPrriinnccee ooff WWaalleess spoke ofDr Badawi’s desire to reconcile heartsto the way of God and to see faithnot just as a common treasure but ameans to give beauty and truth backto the world.

4444 RReemmeemmbbeerriinngg AAll--HHaajjjjaahh FFaarriizzaahhRRaabbbbaattSShhaayykkhh MMuuhhaammmmaadd AAll--YYaaqqoouubbiimourns the loss of his wife andshares his “grief and sorrow upon theloss of my heart.”

4466RReevviieewwFFiillmm:: TThhee FFaammiillyy TThhaatt WWaallkkss OOnn AAllllFFoouurrss.. AAddaamm GGoorreenn finds a new

3377 HHaabbiibb AAllii aall--JJiiffrrii,, TThhee MMeerrccyy WWaarrrriioorrAAbbdduull--RReehhmmaann MMaalliikk reports from London, Copenhagen and Abu Dhabi about aspiritual activist on a mission to unite hearts across the so-called East-West divide.

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6 | Q-NEWS

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GIVE!The writer of the

Letter of the Monthreceives a DVD copyof Le Grand Voyage byIsmael Ferroukhi, ongeneral release from27th February 2006.

Write to Q-News, PO Box 4295,

London W1A 7YH or letters@q-news.com

Letters may be edited for length and coherence.

Shakir and Hamza Yusuf. After9/11 and the hysterical reactionin the media and amongst thegeneral public to Islam, I decidedlike many people that I wouldlike to know more about Islam,as both a civilisation and a faith.I was brought up a Catholic butnow consider myself an atheist.What I discovered in my readingwas what I had already been toldelsewhere - that Mohammed wasa remarkable man, wise, peacefuland charitable. The story of howMohammed finally came to takeMecca, armed with nothing morethan white robes and accompa-nied by thousands of fellow disci-ples, was a particular favouriteand reminded me of the modernachievements of Gandhi andMartin Luther King. However, Ifeel that we in the ‘West’ need tohear those stories of Islam andcome to know them as well asany concerning Moses, Jesus orSt. Paul. I get the impression thatmany people here in Britain andin America have little under-standing of Islam and therefore,find it all to easy to think of it asalien and different, when as youpoint out in your piece, we areall children of Abraham. Iassume that a narrow mindedmedia, who are more interestedin scaremongering and hearsaythan history and fact, provide themajor obstacle to greater under-standing of Islamic culture.However, the greater our under-standing of the Islamic narrative,the greater the harmony that canbe achieved between differentcommunities. I’m sure you andyour colleagues at Q-Newsalready work on these types ofprojects, but I just wanted to addmy thoughts to the debate.

Brian O’Hagan, Worthing, UK

Afghan ConvertI cannot hear enough of my fel-low Muslims complaining aboutthe double standards of the Westin their dealing with theMuslims. Although many of thecomplaints are valid, it is worry-ing that we Muslims have

Muslims and gaysLetter of the month

Reading a recent story in TheTimes, I was intrigued by aremark attributed to PeterTatchell, the well-knownspokesperson for the gay rightsmovement. The context was areport on some comments madeby a senior Muslim cleric in whichhe questioned the wisdom of legalrecognition for gay partnerships. Ihave my own opinions on thissubject, but they are not the pointat issue. In general, of course, it isinappropriate to take a viewabout other people’s personallives, and I shall certainly refrainfrom doing that.What struck me, however, wasthat Mr Tatchell was quotes assaying it was “a tragedy that oneminority should attack another".This seems to me very much acase of confusing the categories -falsely comparing things that areintrinsically different. I myself amneither Muslim nor gay and sowould hope to be credited withsome objectivity in the question.But nevertheless I recognise thatIslam is a religious faith, fourteencenturies old. Since its birth, itwas been the inspiration for art,poetry, music, architecture, scien-tific discovery, military conquestand the foundation of great civili-sations such as Muslim Spain andthe Mogul Empire in India. The Muslim religion has been forcountless millions of people apath by which they sought eternaltruth and purpose in their lives.At the present time, millions andmillions throughout the world,from professors of physics topeasant farmers, are united byIslam in prostrating themselveseveryday before Almighty Godand praying for understandingand peace and the wisdom andpatience to accept sufferings oflife.It seems to be inconceivable thatMuslims in Britain or anywhereelse should think of themselves a“minority” in any sense compara-ble to Mr Tatchell’s minority, thegay community. The one is anancient and beautiful religious

faith, the other a section of socie-ty with sexual tastes not shared bythe majority. The story remindedme of something else thatappeared in one of the “quality”newspapers recently, an article bya regular columnist in which sheexpressed the view that whenyoung women wear the Muslimveil, that is a gesture of youthfulrebellion similar to the fashion forgirls to display their knickersabove the waistline of their jeans.I would be surprised if I were theonly person to find this opinioneccentric to say the least.In a free society such as ours somepeople believe in God and somedo not, and each individual is atliberty to believe in and practice areligious faith, or not, as he or shesees fit. But it is surely depressingwhen we have p[public figuresand journalists, people whowould presumably see themselvesas playing some part in mouldingopinion, who do not actuallyknow what a religious faith is,and are incapable of distinguish-ing it from a teenage fashion fador a minority sexual appetite. Orin other words, have no conceptof the difference between what isserious and abiding and what isnot.

Patrick G. Lee, Surrey, UK

Muslim anarchistsI read with great interest andappreciation the fine comment byFareena Alam entitled, ‘Why Ireject the anarchists who claim tospeak for Islam’ in the Observernewspaper. I have worked all overthe world in many Muslim coun-tries. I wish more people under-stood your wonderful faith,ancient culture (you taught useverything), and dedication. Mybest wishes to Q-News.

Diana de Marco, Umbria, Italy

Fareena Alam’s article in theObserver was an excellently bal-anced piece. I was particularlydrawn to some of the excitingideas put forward by the Islamicscholars you quote, such asAbdallah bin Bayyah, Zaid

Q-NEWS | 7

stopped looking at how webehave. Whereas westernMuslims are enjoying the fruitsof freedom of speech and belief,Abdul Rahman an Afghan con-vert to Christianity is being triedfor apostasy. Many organisations(MCB, FOSIS, MAB etc.) whichpretend to act as flag bearers ofIslam have not spoken outagainst this and it is only the‘silent majority’ which seems tohave more humanity in them iscomplaining. Moreover it isinteresting to see how ‘Islamic’jurists prefer a couple of unspeci-fied ahadith reports and theopinions of some of the mosthard-line medieval jurists overclear and emphatic Quranic vers-es (2:256, 10:99, 11;28, 88:21-22, 42:28, 13:40, 27:92, 18:29)exhorting freedom of belief. Thisjust goes on to show the hugegap between the archaic formu-lations which some extremistsinsist on enforcing on others andthe Islamic spirit which is in thehearts of millions of peacefulMuslims. In the end we are allchildren of Adam and as aMuslim I believe that any reli-gious belief is not meaningful ifit does not if it does not comethrough personal conviction,contemplation and a consciouseffort to love and obey God.

Hariz Aziz, Coventry, UK

Cartoon PollI just saw the poll on the Q-News website which asks if thecartoons or the reactions ofsome Muslims has caused moredamage to the reputation of theProphet (saw). I am surprised atthe number of people who thinkthe cartoons did more damagethan the reaction of those fewMuslims who committed a grossmisconduct of adab, whilst exer-cising their legal right to protest.Those whom I have met and arefamiliar with Q-News usuallyhave opinions that are consid-ered and well thought through,attributes that I would not asso-ciate with those who wouldthink the cartoons did more

harm than those few Muslimsduring the protests. In my expe-rience such people don’t evenknow that Q-News exists, sothis current result of 22% hascome as a real shock. I just need-ed to express my thoughts andquestion who is actually voting.May Allah reward you all forthe amazing work that you doand for all the events that youorganise.

Kelly Walsh, London, UK

Let us reflect before we publishPolls. You have a poll asking ifthe Danish cartoons or theMuslim reaction was more dam-aging. The poll already presup-poses that the image of Islamand the Holy Prophet PBUH wasdamaged. If you choose the“Danish Cartoons”, then youare automatically telling the per-petrators to continue publishingsuch cartoons because it is agood way to defame the ProphetPBUH. If you choose “TheMuslim Reaction” then you areagreeing that Muslims are toblame even though the Kuffarwere the instigators. The pollsare therefore biased from thevery outset. Such polls do noth-ing except help propagate biasedopinion. The fact is that thewestern press and their support-ers have neither the factual justi-fication nor the moral standingto defame anyone, not to speakof Prophets (peace be uponthem). If a dog barks at you, itdoes not mean you are a thief. Itis a dog’s job to bark. The fact isthat the protest was justified andMuslims exhibited their unityand disdain through the justifiedprotests. Don’t believe all thatthe media projects. Don’t try tobecome part of the media byprojecting biased polls.

Uzair, California, USA

For me, the violent reaction ofMuslims to the Danish cartoonsdemonstrates why so many peo-ple see Islam in precisely the wayone cartoonist suggested ... as abomb about to go off.

Philip Clarke, London

My suggestion for campaigningconcerning the Danish cartoonsis this: have a good group likeShaam or someone stand out-side the Houses of Parliamentdressed in white and sing theBurda. And then have peoplegiving out leaflets with its trans-lation and explaining why theMuslims love Muhammad (mayAllah’s peace and blessings beupon him).

Asma Khawaja, London

The right to reactImam Zaid Shakir’s good arti-cles Clash of the Uncivilized:Insights on the CartoonControversy and The EthicalStandard of the ProphetMuhammad advocate peacefulactions in the face of intentionalinsult to Muslims worldwide.He condemns violent behaviourand Muslims showing theiranger. Perhaps, he also advo-cates freedom of press. But please think: Palestine, Iraq,Afghanistan, Bosnia, the threatsto Iran and the offensive car-toons - and all you want ispeaceful dialogue? Ok, but dia-logue with whom? Who is readyto sit and listen and if anyonewas listening believe me theseflash points would have beensolved. If European countries want touse ‘freedom of expression’ asan excuse to humiliate Muslims,then what Muslims are doing inresponse is also ‘freedom ofexpression’. When you push someone to thewall, he will only start pushingback in any which way thatcomes to mind at that point intime. This letter is not support-ing violence but I believe eco-nomic boycotts are just. This,after all, is my freedom ofspeech and thought.

A mumin

Is it Anti-Semitism?A recent poll conducted byPopulus surveyed 500 BritishMuslims about their attitudes to

Jews. The results, published onthe front page of the JewishChronicle on 10 February, con-tain some results that are deeplyshocking to most Jews.According to the survey nearlyhalf of British Muslims believethe British Jewish community tobe “in league with the freema-sons to control the media andpolitics” (46% v 22%). Asmany (37%) think that theJewish community is a legiti-mate target in the struggle forjustice in the Middle East, asdisagree with this sentiment(35%). I and many other British Jewsare deeply worried about thesewrong perceptions of us andwould like not to believe it, butthe survey took a large sampleand seems fairly clear. The ideaabout “Jews and Free Masons”seems to come from deeplyhateful anti-Jewish propoganda- in particular the infamousTzarist police propogandist for-gery The Protocols of the Eldersof Zion which, much to Jewishconcern, has been widely repro-duced and broadcast recently inArab countries like Egypt andSyria and has been included inthe Hamas charter. I would expect that a fewderanged or hate-filled peoplewould go for such conspiracytheories but to think that overhalf of British Muslims believethis nonsense is very troubling.The latter question was eithermis-understood by those whoanswered it (I hope) or elsemeans that British Jews reallydo have good reason to fearunprovoked violence from theBritish Muslim population.Dr Richard Stone of Alif-Aleph,has suggested this situation aris-es from British Muslims havinglittle or no contact with BritishJews. I would like to hear the views ofintelligent Muslim commenta-tors whether some urgent actionis called for to mend interfaithrelations between British Jewsand British Muslims.

Jonathan Samuel, London

C O N T R I B U T O R S

8 | Q-NEWS

ADAM GORENis an independent consultant in occupationaltherapy and special needs. He also writes forspecialised health and education publications.

NAZIM BAKSHis a Toronto-based journalist and a radio and

television producer with the CanadianBroadcasting Corporation (CBC).

HUMERA KHANis a veteran consultant on social policy andrace and gender inequalities. She is also a

co-founder of The An-Nisa Society.

RT REVD DAVID GILLETTis the Bishop of Boltonx and Chair of the

Christian Muslim Forum, which was foundedin January 2006.

AMINA NAWAZis a student of history and devoted observerof London life. She is completing her Mastersin African and Asian History at the School of

Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

CHRIS SANDSis a British journalist who has lived in Kabulsince August 2005. Before this he spent four

years reporting from the Occupied PalestinianTerritories, Iraq, Kuwait and the UAE.

FARISH AHMAD-NOORis a Malaysian political scientist and human

rights activist currently based in Berlin. He is aprolific writer and has a particular interest in

Islamist political movements in South East Asia.

MOHAMED M. HUSAIN is currently studying for an MA in Islam and

Middle Eastern politics at the School ofOriental and African Studies, University of

London.

NABILA MUNAWARis an educator and government policy analystin Toronto, Canada. She is an the executive

member of the IHYA Foundation and acontributing editor at Q-News.

Q-NEWS | 9

CLASSIC Q

Equality is all the rage, andevery modern person (see,a few years ago I would

have said “man") likes to thinkthat, yeah, we’re all the same,men and women, boys and girls.It’s chic to be so and don’t we allknow it.

But who are we fooling?Ourselves more than anyoneelse. For a Muslim man to saythat boys and girls are different iscourting disaster; such an admis-sion is red meat to the feministsof this world, and they are mostcertainly not akin to your averagevegetarians.

Never mind here goes: boysand girls, males and females aredifferent, and no amount of verbaltinkering or social engineering canalter that.

There. I’ve said it. And don’t Ifeel better. But now I have to justi-fy what I have said. How did thisearth-shattering view come about?Right under my nose, so to speak.

My daughter is now four yearsold (and the apple of my eye, as alllittle girls are for their fathers) andher personality is already well devel-oped. She is confident, demanding,questioning and cute all at the sametime. Allah blessed my wife and Iwith this one, Al hamduli-Llah. Shedoes all the things little girls are supposedto do without any prompting from us. Ifthings go according to plan (oops, I’vegiven the game away!), my wife will havea grand little helper in the house in thenot too distant future, in sha’Allah.

And my son? At two, he is also devel-oping a strong mind and personality ofhis own. He is slower than my daughterwas with his walking and talking, but hisway with words (or, rather, his lack of away with words) is so endearing he justmakes you want to pick him up and cud-dle him. (But are dads supposed to dothat with their sons? Hey, who wants tobe a graduate of the Prince PhilipAcademy of Childcare?) Although he hasa tendency to want to play with every-thing his sister has in her hands, what hedoes with the Barbie dolls is light-yearsaway from what she does. But that’sanother story. And, yes, he is going to behelpful around the home, because when

he is in the mood, he does ashe is told.

The point is, though, his way of walk-ing is different from hers. So is his style oftalking. His behaviour is more brusqueand where his sister might at least give usa fair hearing he brushes us off with acurt “No”.

When he tumbles, he picks himself upand dusts himself off and starts all overagain, (sounds familiar; could it be thecue for a song!), unlike my daughter whois prone to hypochondria.

And their likes and dislikes are differ-ent down to the food they eat. Noamount of sibling monkey-see, monkey-do business has any effect.

In a week when reports suggest thatgirls are now out performing their malecounterparts at every academic level, andmore and more women are beating mento the top in business and the professions,how much longer can the charade ofequality continue?

It is plainly obvious thatdifferences exist from year one,even to the most untrained ofeyes. And this is how it ismeant to be! We are differentbecause we have been madedifferent so equal clearly doesnot meant “the same".Biological functions apart,male and female attitudes,outlooks and aspirations dif-fer so greatly that only fools(but not horses) would thinkotherwise.

Where a male might see ahill to be climbed, a femalemight see an easy ride downthe other side. When afemale imagines a fully-fittedkitchen, the male sees mere-ly a lot of sweat installing it.And when a male sees some-thing to be repaired, thefemale pictures the mess onthe kitchen floor.

But back to the chil-dren. My two have bondedin a way which suggeststhat the difference in atti-tudes to relationships isformed at a very early age.Where they pick it upfrom, Allah alone knows,but watching the two

interact is an education in itself. Yes, mydaughter mothers her little brother (some-times to the point of it being smothers!)and the little tyke laps it up. How do fem-inists explain that? Nothing reallychanges. Males will do what males gottado, and females will do as they’re told.Only joking!

When my daughter hits my son forsome reason he usually hits her back. Shedoes not like this status-threatening retal-iation and despite my attempted explana-tions that bullying pays no dividendsworth having, she remains unconvinced.Even telling her that she had better becareful, “because when he is bigger thanyou…" is of little use; she looks at mewith uncomprehending eyes. “How canBhai be bigger than me, Papa? I’m four!”

That’s feminine logic for you. Whichproves my point, precisely.

Tawfiq Khan, in Q-News, Vol 3: No. 30,21-28 October 1994.

It’s the natural way!

The streets of London are to host the biggest piece offree theatre ever staged in the capital this month. TheSultan’s Elephant is a fairy-tale for adults and childrenalike, and features a vast, moving, wooden elephant theheight of a three-storey house.The spectacle is the workof French company Royal de Luxe. Established for thirtyyears but hardly known in Britain, the company hasperformed all over the world. It is particularly known fora series of extraordinary shows involving gigantic,moving figures up to forty feet high.This is the first timeone of their ‘giant’ shows has appeared in London. Itplaces, according to Artichoke Productions’ Helen

Marriage, “an extraordinary, moving, yet approachable,piece of art at the very centre of a capital city’s life,stopping the traffic and closing roads wherever it goes.Although London’s streets are closed to traffic forpolitical demonstrations, road works, ceremonial eventsand sporting triumphs, they are rarely closed for art.”Unmissable!

The Sultan’s Elephant begins on 4th May and continuesuntil 7th May in major streets, squares and outdoorvenues in Central London. It is a free show and moredetails are available on www.thesultanselephant.com.

Q-NEWS | 11

DIARY

If anyone stands on a street corner inColorado with an open map, the like-lihood of someone stopping to ask ifyou need help is almost inevitable.Thus when, in my first few months in

London only one person offered to help meas I stood on corners and in undergroundstrying to read foreign symbols and hiddenstreet names, I quickly realised that ‘I aintin Kansas no more.’ I learned that inLondon, when you need something, youask for it, no one offers it to you: unless it’sthe Evening Standard. A few morningsago I was feeling particularly joyful. I mademy way to uni, navigating my way onnow- familiar streets, when I saw a younggirl, probably my age, standing a waysaway, on the street corner looking aroundanxiously, and nervously glancing at asemi-concealed map. This all-too-familiarscene aroused in me a sense of sisterlyresponsibility and I quickened my pace tooffer her some help. I had just reached herwhen I saw something remarkable. In thetime that I had taken to walk towards her,an incredibly old man with a cane standingopposite, had hobbled across the street andnow tapped the girl on the shoulder saying,“Excuse me love, can I help you find yourway?” The look on her face, relief mixedwith gratitude, resonated in my entire soul,and I couldn’t help it: the tears just came.The girl looked up at me, as I walked pasther, tears now flowing in a steady stream,and I beamed at her. She smiled back andin that moment I think we both knew thatthe world would be all right because an oldman had crossed the street, and that good-ness existed, and that yes, indeed we alleventually find our way.

Hours melt into days and daysmelt into months and thegentle hum of conversationhere in the post-grad com-mon room lulls me into a fog

of reflection. Meeting up with old friends

always makes me sleepy with happiness.We had our lunch at Planet Organic andwalked around for a bit before I returnedback to ‘get some work done’ but instead Isit here, languid with peace and ready toonly breathe in and out. Reunions with oldfriends always force you to re-examinewhere you were, where you have been,where you are and perhaps even dare todeclare where you ‘will be’. The funnything is with how much conviction we bel-low our plans for the future, vaguely awarethat perhaps four months later when wesee each other again, we may be heading innew and exciting directions, hours anddays away from where we were onlymonths ago…but hours, days, months -they are all the same in the end, whenepochs of time will seem like only ‘a day orpart of a day’.

My parents are growing older.Of course I should haveknown that, but only afterbeing away have I begun tosee what that means. There

are of course, the usual health and physicalchanges that accompany age, but alongwith those are more subtle and quiet alter-ations in manner. In the autumn of theirlives, together my parents have found aunique rhythm of their own. Their lives,like most suburban families synthesise thefast efficiencies of the urban center, withthe slow motion of non-city living. Theycommit to everything and yet maintaintime for their own persons. When I washome, we spent whole days reading togeth-er in the living room, hardly speaking butcommunicating all the same, bringing eachother tea, snacks, blankets and hot choco-late. I once heard that the Mauritanians arethe best hosts because they can anticipatewhat the guest wants before they request it.I felt that my parents have tapped into thismagical awareness of another, that perhapsonly comes from understanding the divine

rhythm of selfless love. When I was withthem, my cares and worries seemed distantsomehow; remote and even childish. I sawin what I perceived as far too much to do,a vibrant partnership that anticipated theothers’ need. I asked my dad how he did somuch, and he replied, “Because I have yourmom as my blanket.” People are afraid ofaging and I sometimes wonder why. Withage comes wisdom, and with wisdomcomes rhythm, and in rhythm is the divine.May God bless all our parents both livingand past with tranquility and peace.

April 24, 2006 2:45am

Procrastination. Every time, Ivow I’ll never do it again. Ipromise my poor, tired bones,that this is the last, the absolutelast time that I will make you

stay up all night and work to meet a dead-line. I promise, tired eyes, that you will resteasy next time and not be pried open at4:00 am to edit vapid collections of hum-drum words strung together. Poor stomachthat ingests obscene amounts of earl greyand coffee mixed with orange vitamin Cand questionably green Echinacea tablets.Drowning in a sea of scattered papers cov-ered in scribbles, books strewn across thefloor, and post-it notes sticking up from allavailable desk surfaces. Falling asleep withchocolate wrappers stuck to my face andkeyboard marks etched in my cheeks. Nofood in the fridge other than a decayingbox of yogurt, one clove of garlic, and halfof a green chili. Ten minute power naps andraces against time, is it really almost 3:00?Twenty five jumping jacks to get the adren-aline flowing. Flat mate’s banana lookingawfully inviting right about now. Is the sunreally coming up in a few hours? I needmore time! Oh sun, procrastinate just thisonce…I promise you’ll never have to do itagain!

Affan Chowdhry is away.

DIARYAMINA NAWAZ

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Dawah Dames and Top Guns

When it comes to explaining the role of women in Islamiccivilization, eager Muslims love to recount stories of

Islam’s classical period, where female scholars and saintstaught, wrote tomes and were a critical element of thedevelopment and transmission of sacred knowledge. Fast forward to 2006 and ask about the current dearth offemale scholarship and Muslims get tongue tied. Somemurmur excuses about colonisation, others about socio-economic disadvantage and there’s always a few who hissunder their breaths, “damn feminists asking bloody difficultquestions again.”The question of why there aren’t more female scholars is animportant one. Thus, the news from the Kingdom of Moroccois certainly welcome. The Islamic Affair Ministry has approved50 women Imams who attended this year’s training program -the first time women were allowed to do so. They studiedjurisprudence, philosophy and the history of religions as partof their Moroccan wire services reported that the newly-appointed spiritual guides will preach in prisons and ontelevision, as well as in mosques and Islamic institutions.In Pakistan, the Ministry of Religious Affairs hasn’t quitegotten around to certifying woman Imams, but the ArmedForces, nay the Air Force is proceeding at supersonic speed.After three-and-a-half years of training, Saba Khan, NadiaGul, Mariam Khalil and Saira Batool - who wears a hijab -were among 36 cadets who received their wings. Dressedmodestly in long tunics, the new recruits earned the praise oftheir superiors. “Above above all, Almighty Allah, helped meachieve this success,” said Saira Batool. The women had their physical training separately from theirmale colleagues. Their training was 100% halal reporters onhand for the parade were assured. Now only if those Moroccans murshidahs had fighter pilottraining, and the Pakistani fighter pilots had some rigorousIslamic scholarship, the naysaying, tut-tutting men wouldreally be in trouble.

The Freedom of Speech Conundrum

Thinking about living in the Netherlands? No problem.You just have to make sure you intend to stay for the

long haul, obtain full-time employment, pay your taxes andstay out of trouble. Oh, there’s one more little thing… you have to watch ashort film, available on DVD for your convenience. As theChicago Tribune recently put it, the new compatibility testfor foreigners applying for Dutch residency is “is veryDutch". Prospective residents have to watch a topless womanfrolicking in the surf and two men kissing warmly. Thetarget of this new message is clearly the growing number ofMuslim migrants, whose conservative values arecondemned by the liberal fundamentalists who’d like to seethem stay out rather than come in.In the wake of the murder of Theo van Gogh, the risingright-wing has hijacked The Netherlands’ ordinarilyprogressive consensus. As one reactionary local councillorin Rotterdam angrily declared, “If you want to live here,you have to accept that girls are allowed to wear miniskirtsand can stay out until three in the morning. You don’t haveto behave this way yourself, but you have to tolerate it.”Funny then how the venerable Wetenschappelijke Raadvoor het Regeringsbeleid (Scientific Council forGovernment Policy or WRR) has just released a three-yearstudy saying (authoritatively, we might add) that there islittle conflict between Islam and Dutch values, includinghuman rights, gender equality and democracy. The report, now with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, fordiscussion and response, argues completely against thegrowing public opinion in the Netherlands that seesMuslim minorities as a dangerous fifth column. What does the Islamophobic intelligentsia have to sayabout all this? Somali-born Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali wasso apoplectic that the only argument she could muster wasthat the report was ‘against free speech’. Hmm… enoughsaid. Finally, on the frontiers of free speech we find the cunningand usually offensive American satire cartoon South Park -the show that makes The Simpsons look like Blue Peter (orSesame Street). South Park is well known for its rude, crudeand lewd humour. It’s even better known in America’s BibleBelt as the blasphemy that has prevented its creators fromtravelling to certain Southern US States for fear of theirlives. Recently the show poked fun at Scientology (the mysteriouscult-cum-religion that has gotten a ludicrously largeamount press recently due to the matrimonial shenanigansof Tom Cruise and his silent bride). After having cussed and heaped unpleasantness onChristianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam,doing the same to Scientology was the last straw forAmerican actor Isaac Hayes. When South Park wasenjoying hilarious hijinks at the expense of other faiths thegood times rolled. When his faith was attacked, the 63year-old Hayes got sensitive. In an Ayaan Hirsi Ali moment,Hayes got all moral and left the show. This is no defence ofSouth Park, but the creators have disposed of his characterwith great aplomb.

- N O T E SQ

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Africa’s Bluesman

Ali Farka Toure was an African, Mali’smost beloved son, and a Muslim. At

his last London concert, he began anelectrifying concert with a joyful song inpraise of the Prophet Muhammad, peaceand blessings be upon him. He threwback his head and smiled broadly, teethgleaming under the light. When he playedhis guitar, he drew a global audience tohis distinct ‘bluesy’ sound. Perhaps it wasnot so surprising, then, that his death on7th March 2006 produced a globalresponse. “I learnt of your death with greatsadness,” wrote Stephen Ayme ofLondon, among the hundreds ofcondolence messages sent to the BBC website. “You touched my life to such anextent that because of you I visited Maliand discovered a vibrant and beautifulland and people.” Toure’s guitar-playingattracted the attention of US bluesguitarists like Ry Cooder. Their 1994album Talking Timbuktu won them aGrammy. This year, he won anotherGrammy for the album In the Heart ofthe Moon, recorded with fellow MalianToumani Diabate. Toure always insistedthat the blues he played did not originateamong blacks in the southern UnitedStates. Rather, it had its roots in Mali.His guitar playing could be hauntinglysad. At other times, it could bring a smileto faces. As his music became increasinglypopular among fans of world music,Toure kept his international tours to aminimum. Instead, he devoted himself tofarming, fishing, and raising cattle. In2004, he became mayor of Niafunke andsought to improve the lives of Malians.He worried about the quality of thefarmland and the encroaching desert. As for international fame: “I don’t knowwhat a Grammy means,” he once said,“but if someone has something for me,they can come and give it to me here inNiafunke, where I was singing whennobody knew me.” Before he died of cancer, Ali Farka Tourehad recorded one last album. Look outfor that album on the World Circuit labelwhenever it is released. It’ll make youwant to book a plane ticket to Timbuktu.Incidentally, Toumane Diabate returns toLondon’s South Bank Centre on 27 May2006 to perform with his SymmetricOrchestra. The sounds of his kora willseem just a little bit empty without Ali’smagnificent guitar by his side.

Protecting Children: a Matter of Faith

The nightmare faced by the Catholic Church in the wake of child sex abuse scan-dals could visit itself upon Muslims too if safeguards aren’t in place to protect

the over 100,000 Muslim children who attend over 700 unregulated madrassahsregularly. That’s the warning from Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, Leader of the MuslimParliament. A report launched in March calls on the government to establish anational registration scheme for informal and supplementary religious schools, sothat they can be monitored and forced to meet their legal obligation under TheChildren Act. Siddiqui said, “If nothing is done now we may face an avalanche ofchild sex-abuse scandals, decades afterwards, similar to those that rocked theRoman Catholic Church. To protect the integrity of these valued institutions it isimportant that all madrassahs put in place transparent and accountable polices andprocedures.” The report received the (predictable) support of Keighley MP AnnCryer, but was criticised by some leading imams. Speaking to The Muslim Weekly,East London Mosque’s Imam Abdul-Qayyum said that “the child abuse in madras-sahs debate was “created to divide... and humiliate the Muslim community unneces-sarily.'" Much of the report deals with putting in place policies, procedures and“best practice” guidelines for preventing child abuse. Nevertheless, the issue is a seri-ous one. Madrassahs and seminaries based in other major Muslim urban centres inthe West have already faced major criminal investigations into the abuse of children,most notably in Toronto which saw proceedings begin against several senior localimams and schools.

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MIRROR, MIRROR ON THEWALL.WHO’S THE MOSTKNOWING THINKER OF ALL?9/11, 7-7 and the ‘war on terror’ have spawned anentire Islam industry. But which shoot-from-the-hip,angry and self-important Muslim spokesmen shouldwe listen to, asks Mohamed M. Husain.

Ileft Britain in March 2003. I had booked a one-way ticket toSyria, to study Islam with women and men who have been serv-

icing the faith and its rich tradition of scholarship and spiritualnourishment for centuries. After two years in Damascus, I relo-cated to Saudi Arabia. Admittedly, I did not last long in Jeddah,packing my bags and returning home to London in September2005. While I am delighted to be home again in the city of mybirth and upbringing, something, has not been quite right.

Islam and Muslims have been in the news almost every day.The dark cloud of the ghastly events of 7/7 still hangs over us.National media outlets are busy promoting previously unknownindividuals as ‘experts on Islam’ and ‘spokesmen for Muslims’ -after all they are mostly men. Sadly many of them are out of theirdepth, desperately struggling to posit an argument.

‘Why don’t they speak to T J Winter?’ my wife occasionallyasks, annoyed. ‘Or Abdullah Trevathan from Islamia school? OrHumera Khan from Wembley?’ I know I am not alone in feelingmisrepresented. Many of my Muslim friends feel the same way.

However, the malaise is deeper than a handful of publicity-craving ‘spokesmen’. During my early teens, I was involved withpolitical Islamist organisations, working up the ranks of youthwings of Islamist organisations in London with their roots inmovements in the Muslim world. Then, I spent two years as anangry foot soldier of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, before my exposure to calm,traditional Muslim scholarship. I resolutely turned my back onpolitical Islam. Now, almost seven years later, I know that myfury-ridden life in Islamism was not Islam, but politicking in thename of Islam. Since then, I have been blessed to have sat at thefeet of some of the most illustrious Muslim scholars in Madinah,Damascus, Istanbul, Cairo, Jeddah, and London and, consequent-ly, know only too well that Islam-'ism’, a political ideology, is theperversion of a religious tradition, the destructive politicisation ofa time-honoured spiritual path.

Distributing leaflets for an Islamist organisation, or attendingsecret meetings in council estates, and plotting to support a so-called jihad against the West does not qualify anyone to speak inthe name of all Muslims. Anjem Choudary and his brigade ofyobs, the irate orphans left behind by the self-exiled Omar Bakri,know that they are on the fringes of an extremist minority, buttheir sensationalism is too tempting for certain sections of theBritish media to ignore. Today, the mainstream, moderate,mosque-going majority of Muslims is not only threatened byIslamist extremists of all shades, but also a new breed of ‘liberal’Muslims.

This latter category is also represented by those who, amongother things, call for the ‘democratisation of the Koran’ and a‘Do-it-Yourself’ approach to understanding Islamic scripture. At arecent debate at the London School of Economics, there were twohigh-profile public Muslim intellectuals calling for reform within

Islam. One, Tariq Ramadan, called for new modes of ijtihad whilethe other, Zia Sardar, advocated a complete severance with thepast and an individual return to the Koran by ‘each and everyMuslim’.

Tariq Ramadan, Oxford-based scholar and grandson of thefounder of the Muslim Brotherhood, reiterated what is in hisbooks: a new reading of Islamic texts, comprehending scripturewithin a historical context and the role of Western Muslims as cit-izens of their nations. Undoubtedly, Ramadan has much to offerand asks pertinent questions in his publications. However, thereare those Muslims who mistrust his approach - questioningwhether he is an apologist for Islamist organisations and whetherhis approach to ijtihad is just too broad.

Sardar, on the other hand, referred to his brand of Islamicknowledge as ‘democratisation of the Koran’. To the young earsof budding academics at the LSE, this may have sounded ratherattractive but it is a discourse fraught with peril. WhereRamadan’s starting point was re-reading texts, Sardar’s was aban-doning the texts. If re-reading scripture results in the loss of theword and spirit of the text, why bother with the text? At this stageof their mutual evolution, Tariq Ramadan, to be fair, was a littlemore respectful of traditional scholars, or the ulama, whereas ZiaSardar was scathing in his vitriol against the ulama.

Ten years ago I too was an angry, motor-mouthed activist rag-ing against the ulama. I recited a litany of grievances against themwhenever I was given the opportunity. Today, subdued and moreaware, I beg to differ. The ulama are not a monolithic, homoge-nous body. Contrary to Ramadan’s assertions, they do not repre-sent ‘only text’. It is a fallacy to argue that the ulama are detachedfrom reality and are merely ulama al-nusoos, or ‘textual special-ists’ as Ramadan argued. Anyone who sat with well-groundedulama will agree that meaningful exposure to serious scholarshipis refreshing, challenging, nuanced, spiritually lifting and intellec-tually humbling.

During the 1950s in Egypt and Pakistan, most of the ulamastood boldly against the politicisation of Islam. At the beginningof the twenty-first century, if we Muslims are serious about livingour faith, then we must stand by those who have inherited a holis-tic Islam from our ancient spiritual master, the noble ProphetMuhammad. Granted, the ulama are not faultless, but dismissingtheir contribution and vital role would be a case of throwing outthe baby with the proverbial bathwater.

The Islamists did exactly that and then unleashed a beast ofterror, underpinned by the freewheeling interpretations of jihadiSalafis, which is now beyond the control of Islamist organisations.

In the wake of 9/11, 7/7, the invasion of Iraq and other events,there is real concern among non-Muslims and Muslims to under-stand one another and bring relative peace to our shared world.And in the midst of this renewed interest in Islam, a whole Islamindustry, not unlike the race industry in Britain and the US, is inits nascent stages. It is a phenomenon from which few us will beimmune.

The Islam industry, like its ‘Islamist movement’ predecessor ofthe last century, is dominated by urbanite professionals who arenot remotely familiar with the thousand-year-old Islamic traditionof deep thought, training, nuance, tolerance and spirituality.Today, we run the risk of accepting DIY Islam, already manifest inthe actions of tube bombers and plane hijackers, who validatetheir terror on their own terms, their ‘democratisation of theKoran’ and not with reference to the understanding of generationsof ulama. Sardar and his ilk may appease his New Statesman read-ership, or Sky News viewers on Friday evenings, but philosophy

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of open, unregulated ijtihad - void of scholarly guidance - leavesthe possibility of that very literal reading of the text that has beenused to support ‘sacred’ acts of violence in the first place.

Sardar’s ill temper was on display during the Q&A session atthe LSE. Sardar lacked the kudos and courtesy of an eruditeMuslim, frequently raising his voice and taking personal jibes atRamadan and members of the audience. This spirit of vitriol alsolitters the pages of his most recent book, Desperately SeekingParadise. Middle-aged male anger, coupled with an arrogant intel-lect, were defining ingredients of the destructive Islamism of thelast century. If we Muslims are serious about change, then thosetwo traits must perish from our midst.

It was the great Imam Malik (d.795) who said that half of one’sknowledge was the ability to confess la adri, which means, ‘I don’tknow’. Imam Malik was indicating to an intellectual state ofhumility. At the LSE debate there was no inclination of ‘not know-ing’, a modern symptom of an intellect that refuses to acknowledgethe existence of a realm beyond its comprehension.

WHEN HECKLERS RUIN AGOOD NIGHT OUTThey are young, brash and rudely interrupt even themost respected Islamic scholars. So how are yougoing to handle your local Muslim loud-mouthwhen he heckles you? A deft touch and bit ofwisdom goes a long way, as Amina Nawazexplains.

He smiled at me on the way inside the hall. Perhaps that’s whatfirst caught my attention, for I had not expected to see such

a pleasant grin from that guy. You may know the one I’m talkingabout: big beard, black and white checkered scarf draped looselyover the shoulders, and a cleanly pressed white Arabian thawbthat stops just above the ankle. My friends and I had entered theLondon School of Economics theatre to find a group of universi-ty-age young men, congregated outside the door, jocularly dis-cussing with one another. Their boyish laughter filled the foyerand as we passed them to enter the hall, my guilty consciencewhispered that I should be ashamed of myself for stereotyping and

expecting austerity.The hall was crowded and Dr. Tariq Ramadan was just begin-

ning his speech. About 10 minutes into the talk the interruptionsbegan. The same young men who I had seen outside laughinglyteasing one another, now angrily posed their questions and inter-rupted the speaker (confirming my initial stereotypes). We werereminded continuously that any comments or questions we hadshould be held until the Q/A session but this request fell upon deafears; the interruptions continued and grew increasingly more hos-tile and untamed in nature. The tension in the room increased dur-ing the Q/A session as the chair fielded questions from the audi-ence, scrupulously avoiding all those raised hands belonging tothe young men.

As they continued to heckle and shout out comments, theexasperated chair, upon the crowd’s urging, finally gave the boysthe floor for five minutes. For people so desperate to speak outduring the lecture and unable to contain their comments, theynow stared at each other expectantly and pushed one another totake the floor. Finally, one of the louder among them began alengthy diatribe on Dr. Ramadan’s position regarding hudud laws,and his lack of quotes from the Qur’an and hadith literature in hisspeeches.

Dr. Ramadan passionately tore through the young man’s hol-low argument’s one by one discussing his stance on various issues.The victims of hudud laws, the innocent woman and children,particularly those of south Asian descent in Middle Eastern pris-ons. Between hearty applause from the audience, he argued thatthere was no justice in the administering of hudud punishments ifthe imprisoning system itself was unjust. He began to speak of hismeetings with the Mufti of Egypt when the young man interrupt-ed with, “Oh, Al-Qaradawi?” and Dr Ramadan responded angri-ly, “No! Dr. Ali Jum’a! You want to speak out yet you are totallyignorant!” The audience burst into laughter as we all felt a kindof satisfying fulfillment in watching the boys, who ultimately hadnothing of relevance to contribute, get blasted. In the midst of thelaughter and applause from the audience, one of them shouted,not in the angry voice of a man, but in the hurt exclamation of ayoung boy, “Stop laughing at us! Listen to us!” Another, the boywho had smiled at me, shouted loudly, “Astaghfirullah for allyou!” These were not the voices of reasonable people attemptinga logically coherent discussion. Rather, these were the voices ofestranged adolescents. For the second time that evening, my con-science chastised me for chuckling and participating in theirridicule.

The ‘heckling boys’, I was informed later have recently re-emerged to protest many Muslim events and may be members ofa group called al-Muhajiroun. The sole purpose it seems of theirpresence is to heckle if seated in the audience, and when not per-mitted inside, to distribute leaflets harshly condemning variousIslamic scholars and organizations.

In the recent Amal Press book launch of al-Hidaya (a classicalmanual of Islamic jurisprudence recently translated into English)which Shaykh Hamza Yusuf attended as the keynote speaker,about ten of the same young men I had encountered at the TariqRamadan lectures, were standing outside the hall distributing fly-ers slandering Shaykh Hamza. One among them, the same youngman who had been slammed by Dr Ramadan a few weeks earlier,shouted angrily that we would be held responsible for what ourears heard that night and that we should be careful who we takeour knowledge from. He obviously did not realise the irony in hisown vociferous clamouring.

Aftab Malik, founder of Amal Press, spoke at length with a

In the midst of this renewed interest inIslam, a whole Islam industry, not unlike

the race industry in Britain and the US, isin its nascent stages.The Islam industry,like its ‘Islamist movement’ predecessor

of the last century, is dominated byurbanite professionals who are not

remotely familiar with the thousand-year-old Islamic tradition of deep thought,

training, nuance, tolerance and spirituality.

“Peace dude,” with a smile. He didn’t stop handing leaflets, orsuddenly say to himself, “What am I doing here? This can’t beright!” But he did smile slightly and say thank you. And that, is astart.

WHY I WOULDN’T SEND MYCHILDREN TO AN ISLAMICSCHOOLTeenagers are like Scud missiles - lots of energy, nosense of direction. In the midst of a profound spiri-tual revival and on the cusp of her sixth-form years,Farzina Alam was looking for some direction.Expecting a teenage spiritual experience and a littlehijabi camaraderie, she ended up at an Islamic schooland it was almost enough to break her spirit.

Age 17 with some decision to make. Which sixth form schoolshould I apply to? I’d recently moved to London and had

spent the first few months frantically researching my options.Where was I to spend perhaps the two most important years of myeducation? My father, ever the optimist, offered the idea of anIslamic school. It was a flat-out “no” from me. I was raised aMuslim and considered myself a practising one - but faith as apublic identity marker was alien to me. It was my religion, but notso much my community. To me, hijabis were either old ladies orvery spiritual, good hearted ‘born again’ Muslims (i.e. peoplewho, at the time I thought, had gone ‘fundy').

In the meantime, while deciding “what school?” (yes, I usedthe handbook extensively - it didn’t help) I spent a few monthsworking at the office of Q-News. For four months I was sur-rounded by lovely, intelligent and fun - and most important forme, women who had all made the active choice to wear the hijabduring their adulthood, rather than through family pressure.

These women were cool. They travelled, they appreciated thearts, they were articulate and they were strong. They didn’t wearthe hijab and immediately shrivel up into homely wives whoseonly passion was to cook a different cuisine everyday. Thesewomen were out to inspire others and to change the world. They

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group of them that evening and notes that “the most striking thingabout my impression from these bothers is that the stereotypes aretrue. They were aggressive, high in rhetoric and painfully oblivi-ous to secular history, politics or Islamic history and its intellectu-al development.”

In the course of discussion Malik asked the boys if they upheldhadith transmitted from al-Tabari to which one said “No!”, andwas sheepishly reminded by his friend that they in fact do. “Thisunderpins the very nature of this group’s inconsistent understand-ing of knowledge,” says Malik, “They had no idea about the clas-sification of knowledge or about Islamic history, and saw theworld in a bi-polar view. They hadn’t studied anything themselves.They were merely regurgitating what was in the pamphlet.”

The aims of the young men are clear: be as loud and in-your-face as possible, even when on logically tenuous ground. In fact,as demonstrated by the nature of their conversation and hollowarguments, logic seldom plays a role. Thus it’s not what they saythat poses a problem, but rather, why and how it is said.

It is said that, “Anger is a natural, adaptive response tothreats; it inspires powerful, often aggressive, feelings and behav-iors, which allow us to fight and to defend ourselves when we areattacked.” Most often, anger represents the presence of anotherdeeper emotion: hurt, fear, pain, embarrassment, and most often,frustration. The Muhajiroun boys are angry, there is no doubtabout that, but we will continuously fail in our attempts to dealwith them, unless we track the source(s) of this anger.

It would not be such a daunting challenge were they anyoneelse. After all, anger is present in every household, every commu-nity and even every individual, but the Muhajiroun boys areMuslims which means that in their attempts to combat their deep-seated insecurities, they cling to the familiar, their security blanketcalled Islam. They hold on to it with an inflexible grip not realiz-ing that as with any relationship that becomes controlling, thething you cling to most, is often the one you drive furthest away.

Our task then is to first and foremost recognise that we do infact shoulder responsibility for these young men. In laughing andridiculing them, we accomplish nothing other than increasing painand humiliation, furthering their sense of alienation, and continu-ing the vicious cycle. Second, we must continuously uphold thetradition of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) whowhen faced with an angry person, turned with his whole body toface them and put his hand on their heart. There is much wisdomin this tradition, the principle of active listening, of gentility, ofmercy and even the insight of using touch as a diffusive tool.

Imagine, if instead of being ridiculed for his own rambling, DrRamadan has invited the young man, put his arm on his shoulder,sat him down for a chat and perhaps even a cup of tea. Some maythink this a naïve course to pursue with such overzealous youngmen but the goal is not to convince them or persuade them, orourselves be exhausted by their rhetoric, but rather to guard thedeeper issue here - the inbuilt insecurities these boys have and usereligion to fill.

At the Amal Press event, as I stood in line and saw my ownanger level rising at the undignified rhetoric in use, one of the boyscame up to me and ordered, “Iqra!” as he handed me one of hisleaflets. “No thanks,” I said coolly, and unable to resist added,“Actually if you are talking to a girl, it’s Iqra-eee! [the feminineversion of iqra]” I said with patronising sweetness. He toweredabove me, and bellowed, “Sister, do you know its haram to cor-rect somebody who’s giving you knowledge?” I stared blankly athim assessing the best course of action. “What?” he demandedangrily. In response I held up my fingers in a peace sign and said,

Malik asked the boys if they upheldhadith transmitted from al-Tabari. Onesaid “No!”, and was sheepishly remindedby his friend that they in fact do.“This istypical,” says Malik.“They had no ideaabout the classification of knowledge orabout Islamic history, and saw the worldin a bi-polar view.They hadn’t studiedanything themselves.They were merelyregurgitating the pamphlet.”

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were out there to be heard. My understanding of what it meant tobe a Muslim changed completely. I realised for the first time,embracing my religion didn’t mean confining myself to Quranclasses in a madrassah. Instead, it was about marrying Islamicethics and values with all the good that our societies in the Westhad to offer.

I found myself occasionally wearing a scarf loosely over myhair and performing my prayers on time. I liked what was hap-pening to me. And I knew it was down to me having spent somuch time around these women. It was something I had neverexperienced before.

I then made a decision that surprised my family. I announcedthat I’d give the Islamic school a try. I figured that if my brief con-tact with these women brought me this far, then why stop?Attending an Islamic school, being surrounding by fellowMuslims, would do wonders!

I started sixth form with high expectations. It would be aholistic education I assured myself, surrounded by fellow studentswho like me, were seeking an alternative, more a teenage spiritu-al experience, than just A-levels.

At first, all went according to plan. I experienced, with emo-tional awe, the conversions of two well-known footballers toIslam in our school mosque (one of whom, for a number of yearsthereafter, I assumed had been Thierry Henry, to the bemusementof my sceptical friends - yes I admit, I know nothing about foot-ball). I loved watching adorable little hijabi girls run around in theschool yard during breaks, and I grew attached to a little boy, halfmy size, called Ali who I called ‘Ally Potter’ because of his roundoversized glasses. Exchanging jinn stories in the common roomwas one of my favourite past times. I was thrilled - I was finallyamong people my age who believed in the same weird things Ibelieved in.

After that though, it all went downhill. The school never both-ered to fix the plumbing so we had to make wudu twice a daywith freezing cold water. There was no halal food for our gradeand so we had to walk 500 metres outside our campus to grablunch. The Prophet-esque horse-riding and archery lessons I hadheard rumours of never materialised. I had had particularly vividdreams about our class of sixth-formers galloping through HydePark on Wednesday afternoons with our jilbabs flowing behindus. In fact, there were no provisions for sixth-formers in terms ofextra curricular activities whatsoever. Did administration see noneed? Or was the idea to simply dump girls in an all-Muslim envi-ronment and leave us at it. Who cares how we fare so long aswe’re segregated and veiled?

I was condescendingly put down by my teacher when I sug-gested our class visit a kibbutz (alright, I later found out they werelocated mainly in Israel, but it was the sentiment that counts). Itold her I found it fascinating that a community could self-subsiston its own labour and produce, but all my mentor could see in myinnocent suggestion was an evil plan to “live among Jews". I wasshocked to find out once that a fellow classmate had never heardof Starbucks - how sheltered must you be to not know of the exis-tence of a coffee joint that has a branch, if not two or three, onevery London high street? She lived 5 minutes away from theschool and had never been to another school or even anotherneighbourhood evidently.

Where were the inspirational Muslims I needed to look up to?Where were the Muslims who had experienced life on both sidesof the spectrum, and had chosen Islam because they knew better?I was finding myself surrounded by the opposite of ‘the ignorantWesterner’. I was among ignorant Muslims and it was depressing.These girls had lived in Britain all their lives, but most had neverknown a non-Muslim friend. How could one expect to knowabout world affairs when they’d never ventured out of their localborough? These girls, unlike my Q-News heroines, had never been‘liberated’ by Islam - they were being severely stunted under somekind of pious pretence.

Eventually, talk of university applications came up. There wasfear and disdain at the thought of going to school with non-Muslims. The most popular ambition was interestingly, mid-wifery. Was it because it fit with the idea of a woman being sole-ly a baby-making machine? There is much talk of how non-Muslims didn’t understand us, but never any thought to how torectify that by not pandering to stereotypes.

And regarding my hopes of surrounding myself with peaceful,God-fearing Muslims? The bitching, arrogant and general know-it-all attitudes prevalent at the school could have matched anyinner-city school in London. There was no love in the air. Sunniclassmates constantly made remarks about an Iraqi-Shia class-mate. Fed up, one day I asked the girls, in her presence, what itwas they’d just been saying before she entered the common room,and no one had the guts to say anything.

September 11th passed and the confusion in me grew. A class-mate went around our common room showing us email forwardsinstructing Muslims to “defend our faith” - the same girl whosported an image of Osama Bin Laden on her Nokia phone. I wasstunned into silence. All my life I was known as the cheery andloud one. Now, increasingly I just wanted to isolate myself furtherand hide under a niqab.

It finally took an inter-faith conference which my college par-ticipated in to make me realise how isolated I had become. I wasdeeply embarrassed to realise that in the five months since 9/11, Ihad not heard the opinion of a single non-Muslim about thetragedy.

I left the school after my first year and decided I would stay athome and study for the A-Levels by myself. I ended up with bet-ter grades than most of my former classmates (forgive me forgloating a little).

I came out of the whole experience bitter about Muslims. Iadmit I was very naïve in the beginning, expecting my time at thisschool to be full of barakah and light, but my question is, if it isn’twhy bother going to an Islamic school in the first place?Academically it did me no favours. Spiritually, it made me lookdown on fellow believers and people in general. Is the only pur-pose of such schools gender-segregation? Do people fear that theseMuslim girls, brought up in conservative households in the first

SCRUTINY

I came out of my Islamic schoolexperience feeling bitter. I was very naïve,

expecting my time here to be full ofbarakah and light, but my question is, if it

isn’t,why bother going to an Islamic schoolin the first place? Academically it did me

no favours. Spiritually, it made me lookdown on fellow believers and people in

general. Is the only purpose of suchschools gender-segregation?

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SCRUTINY

place, will start obsessing about boys the minute they turn eleven?If they wanted to, I assure you, they would do it anyway - like oneof my classmates who used to meet her boyfriend around the cor-ner from the school on a regular basis.

Perhaps the school I attended is an exception to the rule, but Ihave a suspicion it isn’t. Maybe things have changed in the lastfew years and Islamic schools have become the kind of places thatprovide a real value-added alternative to state schools (they arecertainly doing better in the league tables if nothing else).Nevertheless, a community which celebrates and defends its rightto faith education must, once in a while, question the vision whichits schools are imparting. If they are helping create a myopic, insu-lar generation that is uncomfortable in modern multicultural,multi-faith Britain, then I think I’d rather have my kids take their-chances in a mainstream comprehensive any day.

SO WHO’S LIVING IN THE‘GHETTO’ NOW?Leave your religious ghettoes behind, Muslims arebeing told, and embrace European culture. But first,European commentators need to step out of theirown intellectual ghettoes, as Farish A. Noor argues,and into the light of class and power relations.

Europe, apparently, has discovered that it has Muslims living inits midst. This re-discovery of Islam in Europe has sent shock

waves among some: for decades it was assumed that Europe wassimply home to several million disparate immigrant communities,- Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Indians, Moroccans, Tunisians, Arabsand Africans. But who had any idea they were all Muslims?

During the decades of post-war reconstruction from the 1950sto the 1960s the states of Western Europe sought to deal with

these groups on the basis of race-relations: an assembly of ideasand practices premised on the compartmentalizing logic of inter-ethnic communal managerialism.

Now suddenly the veil has been lifted and a resounding crycan be heard: “A-ha! We are all Muslims! We were hiding in ourkebab take-aways and Indian restaurants, and we were waitingfor the right moment to spring the news on you guys! We areMuslims, that’s right - Muslims, and we are here to stay!”

Undoubtedly the faint-hearted have already taken to the hillsand are preparing themselves for this great civilisational assault onthe Occident. Some Europeans, we have been told, were sospooked by this sudden emergence of Muslims that they even emi-grated to Australia, only to learn that there are Muslims there too!

Much of this talk of ‘Islam in Europe’ has been sparked byrecent events of geopolitical import: 9-11, the invasions ofAfghanistan and Iraq (and the protests that ensued), the bombingsin London and Madrid, the riots in Britain and France. Theseevents have been catalysts that have spurred academics, politiciansand policy-makers into action, prompting an array of researchmeetings, seminars, conferences and new laws and regulationsthat impact directly on the civil liberties of Europeans in general.(At present, I am personally familiar with four academic projectson Islam in Europe being undertaken in earnest. While such aca-demic access may border on the overkill, it does at least providesome employment for otherwise unemployable researchers andstudents. Studying Islam is therefore big business as well.)

My own contention with this spurious debate over IslamorMuslims in Europe is that much of it has been unimaginative,unintelligent, non-intellectual and fundamentally un-academic.While former research on areas dominated by social anthropolo-gy, history and political science at least required some semblanceof academic scruple and objective analysis, the study of Muslimsand Islam in Europe has been conducted on the basis of anecdot-al evidence, hearsay, conspiracy theories, grand abstract concepts(such as the ‘Clash of Civilizations') and an essentialist under-standing of cultural difference.

Indeed, the shift from the study and discourse on ethnicity andrace to the more general study of religio-cultural differences hasopened the way for essentialism to return with a vengeance. Sowhen a Muslim does something stupid (like dressing up as a sui-cide bomber during a protest rally), his actions are immediatelyexplained in termsof Islam or his Muslim identity. No one wouldsuggest the same when young Prince Harry dresses up as a Naziat a costume party. No one attributes his idiocy to his personalreligious beliefs.

As a political scientist, I am amazed by the near-total absenceof sound philosophical and political concepts such as class andpower relations in this contemporary discourse on Islam andMuslims in Europe. There seems to be the unstated assumptionthat Europe’s Muslims enjoy the same degree of class agency, rep-resentational power and access to opportunities like everybodyelse. There is a tacit agreement to overlook the very specific classand subject-positions of the Muslims themselves, who are almostentirely made up of former poor migrants from the formercolonies of Europe. This oversight is a fatal one, and leads us todisastrously wrong conclusions at times.

‘Muslims don’t like Opera’One of the conclusions that arises from this willful blindness

to the class and subject positions of Muslims in Europe is the viewthat Muslims are a community apart, and that they deliberatelychoose not to integrate into the mainstream of European social

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and cultural life. Even normally level-headed intellectuals cansometimes ask the most stupid and asinine of questions, like:“Why don’t we ever see Muslims in the art galleries or the opera?Why don’t they (Muslims) participate in non-religious culturalevents and activities?”

Well, if Muslims seldom go to the opera here in Europe, it isnot because they have a disdain for Wagner for reasons of politi-cal correctness, it is simply because they cannot afford to. And onthat same note, it should also be noted that many of the so-called‘mainstream’ aspects of European culture remain closely tied toelite interests and practices; and ordinary poor, unemployed,homeless and professionally less advanced Europeans do not go tothe opera either. It is class, and not culture, that determines theparameters of our circles of alienation and civic participationabove all else.

Between the individual and society there is an array of subjectrelations that needs to be understood and negotiated: We need tobegin from the simple premise that everyone’s relations to societyas a whole is subjective, historically-determined and parochial intheir own way. Muslims in Europe may have a limited engagementwith ‘Europe’ as a whole, but this is no different from the subjec-tive understanding and experience of Europe that is in the heart ofevery other European. (Where, pray tell, can we ever find the ‘per-fectly constituted European citizen’ who appreciates the entiretyof Europe in all its cultural and historical depth?)

Linked to this is the very idea and ideal of Europe itself, whichfor many is seen as a limited and already-defined concept. In con-trast to some other countries like South Africa where the idea ofthe ‘nation’ is kept open as a fluid concept that is ever-evolving,the idea of Europe has been frozen and made rock-solid by nation-alists and Pan-Europeanists who would prefer to think of Europeas a completed project.

This is a dangerous assumption because it overlooks the factthat European culture is always evolving. It also forestalls anymeaningful engagement between Europe and the wider globaliz-ing world. Worst of all, it spells the end of any integration move-ment because it means that newcomers to Europe will have noth-ing to contribute, whether it is on the level of culture, ideology,life-practices, economics and politics. This is the impression thatmany minorities in Europe have today: that they have nothing tocontribute to Europe, save for kebabs and samosas and fried rice.

To seriously deal with the issue of Muslim migration and set-tlement into Europe, we therefore need to return to basic eco-nomics and political fundamentals. Muslims are not asking forany special treatment or privileges, certainly not at the expense of

Europeans or other minorities. But like other minorities they need to have their circles of

alienation minimised and their circles of civic participationexpanded. This can only be achieved when we take into accountthe genuine class and economic disparities between minorities andthe majority dominant group of any society. Here nonsensicalnon-discourse on ‘cultural difference’ has to give way to real,grounded analysis of class, wealth distribution and allocation ofresources instead. If it is politically correct to take into account thespecific needs of disabled people, gendered minorities etc. thenwhy does the rule no longer apply to minority groups as well?

Muslims have contributed to the cultural, economic and polit-ical life of Europe at all levels and in many different ways, andthey will continue to do so. Some have chosen to do so as activebelieving Muslims while others have put their religious identitiesbehind them and participated primarily as citizens of an abstractEurope. The ease with which Muslims - and any minority groupfor that matter - ‘step out’ of their communal groups into widersociety depends precisely on the obstacles they face at the thresh-old between the private and public spheres, and the glass ceilingsand other hindrances they may encounter in wider society.

This process can be accelerated and aided further via a net-work of helpful initiatives that may include positive discrimina-tion, affirmative action and the like. But in the end, Muslims’ con-tribution to Europe as Europeans will only be noted when we rec-ognize them for what they are today: Europeans who happen tobe Muslims as well.

“HERE NOTHING IS SAFE;THERE IS NO FREEDOM”Chris Sands reports from Afghanistan on the stateof religious freedom and how deception and sub-terfuge has become the norm for a small group ofactivists who see their country falling deeper intogrip of an extreme theology at odds with humanrights.

KABUL - Ali Mohaqiq Nasab fingered some prayer beads whilehe waited for permission to talk. Afghan President Hamid

Karzai looked down from a picture on the jail wall. A few min-utes went by, then the police finally let him speak.

“There is no freedom here, absolutely no freedom. I am notsaying bad words about Islam. Whatever I say is according to ourholy book. I am a Muslim, it’s my religion and I should be allowedto talk about it,” he said.

Nasab was jailed last Autumn for publishing blasphemousarticles in a magazine called Women’s Rights. His case sparkeddiverse outrage across the country - some called for his executionand others demanding his immediate release.

“They did not allow me to employ a lawyer and when I wastalking [in court] my speech was being cut off. It was useless. Theydid not decide my sentence according to justice, they decided itaccording to politics and still I have not accepted that decision,”Nasab told me at the time.

“I am a knowledgeable person. I want to work for the peopleof Afghanistan, I want Afghanistan to live in peace and I want theIslam here to be based on law, not fundamentalism.”

SCRUTINY

Even normally level-headed intellectualscan sometimes ask the most stupid

questions, like:“Why don’t we ever seeMuslims in the art galleries or the opera?

Why don’t Muslims participate in non-religious events and activities?”

Nonsensical non-discourse on ‘culturaldifference’ has to give way to real,grounded analysis of class, wealth

distribution and allocation of resources.

22 | Q-NEWS

When I first met Nasab he was just a few weeks into what wasmeant to be a two year prison sentence. The scholar talked with aquiet rage about the way religion was being used as a tool ofrepression. And he wondered aloud why the international com-munity seemed unwilling to help him.

“Here nothing is safe, there is no freedom. Afghanistan is stillbeing controlled by Islamic extremists 100 per cent. Arab coun-tries, Pakistan and Iran still have huge influence,” he said.

Those words of despair were spoken more than four monthsago and a successful legal appeal means Nasab has long since beenreleased. But only now is the world finally taking notice of theconflict between Afghanistan’s newfound democratic status andits age-old dependence upon strict Islamic values.

“I was not scared, I just felt I wanted to bring freedom to thepeople of Afghanistan, to let them live peacefully and openly.What I wrote is true. I have discussed this with other people andthey agree with me,” he said.

The editor had published an article saying Muslims who con-vert to other religions should not be killed. For that, as well asother stories deemed blasphemous, he was put behind bars.

But the nationwide fury caused by Nasab’s case was nothingcompared to the international anger that engulfed Afghanistanwhen a man faced the death penalty for doing exactly what themagazine had dared discuss.

Abdul Rahman was denounced by his family in March forconverting to Christianity 16 years ago. Some clerics demanded hebe beheaded, people walked through the streets baying for hisblood and Western governments were outraged at the prospect ofa friendly state killing someone for their religious beliefs. He waseventually spirited away to Italy.

Nasab, a Shia Muslim, saw a conflict like this coming and hehad tried to put himself on the frontline before anyone else. Hetold me as much from inside jail: “I am an ordinary Muslim. I loveIslam, I am a pure Muslim. But I just wrote that every religionshould be free to live in Afghanistan. This is in accordance withhuman rights. I am discussing an Islam… that is about humanlove.”

Islam has grown and flourished here ever since it was intro-duced by Arab armies some time during the seventh century.However, the current battle between religious fundamentalismand values imposed from abroad can be traced back to 27 April1978, when communists seized power in Kabul.

The repression that followed sparked a revolt from Afghanswho became known as the Mujahideen - ‘holy warriors’ - and theSoviet Union subsequently invaded to protect its puppet adminis-tration. But with massive support from America’s CentralIntelligence Agency (CIA), the Muslim insurgents drove out theRussians after almost a decade of brutal occupation.

The ensuing power vacuum was filled by the victorious funda-mentalists - of varying degrees - and a bloody civil war began in1992. This gave rise to the Taliban who captured Kabul four-yearslater and imposed strict shariah law across the country, killing aneconomy and education system that was already crippled.

When the US-led coalition successfully deposed MullahMohammed Omar’s government in 2001, it was thus hailed by theWest as Afghanistan’s liberation from decades of oppression. Thereality, as the Nasab and Rahman cases show, is not so simple.

Waheed Warasta knows all too well the dangers non-Mulsimsstill face here in his homeland. In such a deeply conservativenation he must keep many of his beliefs under wraps if he wantsto survive.

“If you give me a form to fill in I will immediately write that

I’m a Muslim because I have to live in this society. Otherwise, likeAbdul Rahman, if I convert to Buddhism Hinduism, Christianityor anything else, I will have to leave this country,” he told me.

“A normal Muslim has to pray five times a day, read theKoran in the morning. I wouldn’t consider myself a Muslim, butin this society my answer to you would be completely different.”

Warasta is Afghanistan’s executive director of InternationalPEN, a worldwide association of writers. The 30-year-old spokeout against Nasab’s arrest and continues to campaign for freespeech.

“In my opinion, even if someone wants to worship a tree it’shis own right. My mind can never accept that someone is killedfor believing in this or that,” he said.

“I would say I’m a humanist, I believe in human values. I’mnot against religions. I respect the different religions as long asthey’re not a means of hatred, fighting and conflict among humanbeings.”

The insurgency here is growing rapidly and security is nowworse than at any other time since the invasion. Suicide bombingshave become common in southern provinces, with militants oftencrossing the border from neighbouring Pakistan.

Islamic extremists also still walk Afghanistan’s corridors ofpower, only now they have international legitimacy. The newlyopened parliament may have been hailed as a beacon of democra-cy by Britain and the United States, but includes controversial fig-ures like Mullah Abdul Salam Rocketi, once a senior Taliban com-mander, and Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a warlord implicated in numer-ous human rights abuses.

The constitution does little to protect religious freedom.Although article two promises to let followers of other faiths act“within the bounds of law”, article three states that “no law shallcontravene the tenets and provisions of the holy religion ofIslam".

While poverty, illiteracy, security problems and the legal sys-tem are all reasons that issues surrounding faith are rarely dis-cussed, the widespread opposition to American foreign policy isanother significant factor.

Even people who despise the Taliban are disillusioned with theUnited States, so anyone who questions the role Islam plays inpublic life is often just regarded as a cheerleader for an imperial-ist crusade.

“I also have Afghan friends who confide in me. They’ve clear-ly said they believe in Christianity, but when they sit with otherMuslims they show they are devout Muslims,” said Warasta.

“They also send their children to the mosque to recite theKoran because if you can’t do that it’s a source of shame.”

When insulting cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, uponwhom be peace, were published by the European press, thefiercest reaction occurred inside Afghanistan. Embassies wereattacked in Kabul and riots broke out across the country. Thatuproar again showed how the vitriol directed towards those whocriticise Islam does not just come from clerics, politicians and thejudges, it also comes from public opinion.

Warasta is the father of a nine-month-old girl called Nirvana,a name taken from the Buddhist and Hindu faiths. Despite all theproblems existing here, he still hopes she might one day be free. “Ibelieve that in the very far future we can have a good societywhere even people who convert can get their rights,” he said.

“But you can’t expect that in the near future, firstly because ofthe [lack of] knowledge of our people and secondly because ofneighbouring countries like Pakistan who are even worse thanus.”

SCRUTINY

Q-NEWS | 23

In modern China, Islam is widely accepted and attitudes towards Muslims have been relaxed due to government liberalisation. Observers note that Islamis undergoing a modest revival, with unofficial estimates putting the total number of Muslims in the country at 15million, worshiping at some 30,000Mosques. One source of concern to the Chinese government however, is the push by Uighur Muslims in the west of the country to form their ownstate. Fearing people are being influenced by ‘Islamic fundamentalists’ forced out of Central Asian countries such as Afghanistan, this is the only factorthat could harm relations between Muslims and the ruling Communist party. For now though, Islam - which has been present in China for over 1400centuries, is alive and well. Much overlooked for many years, Chinese Muslims are now of huge relevance on a global scale. As the world’s fastestdeveloping country and the world’s most topical religion combine, the resulting out-come should be of great interest to the global community.

This page and opposite: (1) A Muslim woman prays in the bedroom of her home. (2) Acrobatic performers prepare to go onstage in the Muslim district of Niu Jie during Eid al-Fitr. (3) Women at Niu Jie Mosque during Eid. (4) Young Muslimworshipers at Niu Jie Mosque during Eid. (5) An old man at Niu Jie Mosque, the largest mosque in Beijing. (6) Young Muslimgirl. (7) A Muslim woman selling clothing during Eid. (8) A mural on the outside of a Muslim nursery school representing‘Uighur’ Muslims from the west of China. (9) A young Muslim cooking in the kitchen of his family’s restaurant. (10) Muslimmen at Niu Jie Mosque during Eid. Previous page: The outside of the Chinese National Headquarters for Hui Muslims, in theMuslim district Niu Jie. Next page: A Uighur Muslim from the west of China, who moved to Beijing for work, prays at sunsetin a back-alley, just off Tiananmen Square.A man tries to sell an animal fur on the street in the Muslim area of Niu Jie. Muslimmen at Niu Jie Mosque during the festival of Eid.

All photographs were taken in Beijing, China during October and November 2005 by Sean Gallagher, an up and comingfreelance photographer based in London. He has had work selected for The Ian Parry Scholarship Award 2003 for youngphotojournalists, in association with the Sunday Times Magazine. During 2004/2005 he was chosen to undertake a 1-yearinternship at the prestigious photojournalism agency, MAGNUM Photos. He is now working on projects investigatingenvironmental and social issues in Asia, with specific emphasis on China.

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FEATURE

The process of establishing this Forum began withthe Archbishop of Canterbury who, in 1997, spoke

of the importance of dialogue between Christians andMuslims in this country: “For the sake of the health ofthis country, we need to find ways in which members ofour two communities can meet regularly together in amore structured way than has been possible up tonow.” His remarks were received warmly by Muslimsin England and since then a group of Christians andMuslims has worked together to see the Forum estab-lished.

The launch itself was a grand event hosted by theArchbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace andattended by a wide range of leading figures from boththe Muslim and Christian communities. Our guest ofhonour was the Prime Minister who was there to wishus well. In his speech he brought a touch of realism toall of us who were celebrating this new beginning. Hewarned: “It’s not always easy I know, and there are afew critics and cynics within each community that willalways raise question marks as to what a forum like thiscan achieve, but I think it can achieve a very greatdeal.”

I do not always see eye to eye with what the PrimeMinister says but on this point I agree. While there aremany who wish us well and have high hopes for theForum, there are those who have questioned whether itwon’t all be a talking shop that achieves very little. AndI agree; at all costs we must avoid becoming just a talk-ing shop. But then talking - dialogue - is important. AsWinston Churchill once remarked, we need more jaw,jaw and less war, war.

Talking together helps us walk togetherAt the first residential meeting of the Christian

Muslim Forum in March of this year we spent a lot oftime talking. There needs to be far more personal relat-ing across the wide spectrums within both our commu-

nities and between them. The Forum has been deliber-ately constructed to reflect this wide breadth that existsin both our communities. The Christians are not all thesame sorts of Christians - and the Muslims also comefrom all sorts of traditions and opinions. Intra-faithdialogue is as important as inter-faith. A journalist fromone of the leading daily newspapers recently said to me,“I hope you are not just going to agree all the time onthe Forum because if that is how it looks we won’tbelieve you!” And of course he is right. However, Ibelieve that we shall find occasions when all 20 of uscan speak with one mind, and we shall want to sayclearly to the media that Christians and Muslims areunited at this point. But we shall not be afraid to speakof differences of opinion between us - and often timesthis will mean some Christians and Muslims agreeingtogether about something while another mixed groupdisagree. That is maturity. Hopefully our friendship willbe deep enough so that we continue to value eachother’s friendship, respect the deeply held convictions ofthose with whom we disagree, and work together forGod’s glory.

But it’s often young people that moan about yetmore dialogue - they are often impatient with talking.They want action - and now. But even young people cansee the point of in-depth talking together. One of theyoung people’s specialists on the Forum puts it like this,

‘We do it because we love God. Not because it’sworthy or the “right thing to do". It’s also at its bestwhen people who are passionate about their faith meettogether… We do dialogue because we care about oth-ers. We want to get to know them, become friends withthem, stand up for them, help them, as they are alsodoing for us... Stereotypes are broken down, friend-ships are built and people work together for the goodof society. It also shows the rest of society that whenpeople of different faiths get together it doesn’t have tolead to trouble - it can lead to peace.’

“We do it because

we love God”“Interfaith is dialogue is a waste of time!” Since becoming the Chair

of the Christian Muslim Forum earlier this year, it’s a cynical sentiment

that the RRiigghhtt RReevvdd DDaavviidd GGiilllleetttt hears more often. He and his part-

ners are undeterred. According to Revd Gillett the nascent forum is a

partnership of equals whose members are under no illusions - they

have a long road to travel before they earn the legitimacy they desire.

28 | Q-NEWS

FEATURE

gious contribution to our society rather than theunhelpful stereotypes that often dominate.

We have begun to explore the possibility ofbringing together trainee Christian and Muslim clericsto encourage interaction and dialogue.

We have also identified further needs which we willbegin to address over the coming months:

To bring together Christian and Muslim devel-opment agencies to learn from each other’s ways ofworking and to create possibilities for greater co-oper-ation.

To commission research into the issues whichaffect Christian and Muslim families which have aneffect on their faith or its practice.

To provide resources for youth workers toenable them to understand the needs and aspirations ofChristians and Muslim young people.

To organise a national day for young people 14-18, including those already involved in more local dia-logue events, that will produce significant resources forinter faith work among young people.

To sponsor a Christian-Muslim family confer-ence to would affirm and resource families, especiallyparents.

At the heart of all our work is our faith in God. Webelieve that faith has an important contribution tomake in our society. If faith is marginalised and doesnot have a place in our national discourse then - inplace of faith - we will see yet more fear or extremism.We need to find a wholesome space for faith in our soci-ety and work towards each of our faith traditions cre-ating space for the other. It’s a long road to travel, butwith God’s blessing, I believe we can journey togetherand see results.

But, talking alone is not enough. The main reasonfor setting up the Forum is to help Christians andMuslims, as people of faith, to work together toimprove the society in which we live. We believe thatwe have values we share which are given to us by God.Both Muslims and Christians believe that God inspiresus and empowers us to make this world a better place,to help our country become a more harmonious andhealthy place in which to live.

God calls us to both prayer and to action I hope that both Muslims and Christians will pray

with conviction that God will bless our country andguide our leaders in both local and national politics tomake decisions that reflect the values which God hasestablished to enable communities to flourish. But, inour increasingly secularised world, many in our landare not always impressed by Muslims and Christianswho say that we are praying for our country. They wantto see some action.

The central task of the Christian Muslim Forum isto encourage joint action - so that everyone can seeChristians and Muslims working together day by dayfor the good of the whole of our people, and not just forthose who come to our mosques or churches week byweek. Here lies the significance of the six specialistgroups which form part of the Forum - Community andPublic Affairs, Education, Family Issues, InternationalAffairs, Media, and Youth. In each of these areas wehave already begun our work. We are committed to fos-tering joint action at national and regional level whereit can influence policy with government and opinionformers, and also to encourage working together atlocal level where it can make a difference on theground. So we have begun to turn dialogue into action:

We are planning to bring together Christian cler-gy and Muslim religious leaders for both regional andnational conferences so that they can learn from oneanother how to help churches and mosques worktogether for their local area. We will also produce adocument outlining good practice for local workingtogether.

We are launching a project for young people tobe engaged with some crucial aspects of the media inour sound-bite age where pop music, T.V. and maga-zines do so much to mould the values of our society.

We are beginning projects in various locations inschools to bring together children from both communi-ties.

The Forum is sponsoring a conference of schol-ars to look at a religious contribution to values and cit-izenship.

We are starting to link up local initiatives inMuslim Christian encounter to help strengthen what, insome areas, are often struggling to get off the ground.

The Forum is beginning to produce guidelinesand policy documents which we hope will help in defin-ing the role of the two faiths in the wider community.

We have held a press reception for thoseinvolved in both religious and secular media, and forummembers are undergoing media training to equip themfor the vital task of raising the true profile of the reli-

In our increasingly secularisedworld, many in our land are notalways impressed by Muslims andChristians who say that we arepraying for our country. They wantto see action.

30 | Q-NEWS

Defending the right of Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten topublish a set of caricatures that Muslims believeddenigrated the Prophet Muhammad, its culture edi-

tor, Flemming Rose, argued that “humour, even offensivehumour, brings people together. Because by making fun ofpeople we’re also including them in our society. It’s notalways easy for those concerned, but that’s the pricethey’ve got to pay.”

Rose is correct to observe that humour has an innateability to unite people. Though the fact that a large num-ber of people will laugh at the same jokes during anepisode of Curb Your Enthusiasm or a Woody Allen filmfor example, indicates only that humour can lure peopleinto a false assumption that they have a lot more in com-mon than they actually do in reality.

What passes for humour today, whether from sitcomsor stand-up comedians, is a chain of trite, oft repeatedjokes that are meant to ‘crack us up.’ And if this serves to‘bring people together’ it is no wonder that conflict resolu-tion in our litigious society is a booming business. We aretold to “lighten up” and take a “chill pill”, that is until wecan’t take it anymore. We have created an industry out ofhumour and by doing so perverted it. Instead of making ushappy it has made us frivolous.

In seeking to justify his decision to publish the depic-tions, Rose mentions two types of humour as if they wereequal - ‘humour’ and ‘offensive humour.’ Muslims can getdownright silly when it comes to humour. After all, Islamhas a rich humour tradition. In the post 9/11 years we haveeven seen a wave of Muslim comedians emerge and quick-ly gain prominence in both Europe and North America.

‘Offensive humour’ is a different story; it is irony thataspires to be humour and fails because it is a weapon for-ever aimed at someone else, never at oneself. Irony’s laugh-ter wounds - it is sarcasm, parody, mockery, and ridicule.Irony’s laughter is cruel and it inevitably humiliates othersbecause it holds everything other than itself in contempt.This genre of humour is alien to the Islamic tradition.

The Danish cultural intelligentsia, in contrast, holdsthat satire - which normally employs irony as its weapon ofchoice - is part of their national identity. Rose and othersargue that when satire is used against a person or a partic-ular group of people they should feel privileged, not insult-

ed, integrated and certainly not excluded from Danish soci-ety. If this reasoning sounds loopy, chances are it is.

Offensive humour emerged and gained ascendance dur-ing carnival season, particularly in Europe, where the two-week festival leading up to Lent gave free reign to ritualspectacles, bacchanalia, comic verbal compositions andrelaxed social rules that allowed bawdy and abusive lan-guage to be spoken openly. During the carnival season thecomedian was allowed the freedom to mock, ridicule andscoff at those in authority as well parody and laugh at thehegemonic ideals upheld by the rich and powerful.

The message of the carnival was undeniable - ‘so longas I can laugh at the rich and powerful, I am free.’

Carnivals not only nourished a culture of offensivehumour, it gave it life beyond the carnival season.Publications embraced caricatures because they used artis-tic techniques to exaggerate a person’s physical features tomake him or her look grotesque or ludicrous. Whether aperson was literate or not he knew instantly that the per-son caricatured was to be scorned, ridiculed and reviled.Not surprising, in the 18th and 19th centuries the Frenchand Spanish monarchs sent their caricaturists to prison,exile or, worse still, to the executioner.

As the tradition of journalism emerged and matured inWestern Europe and the United States in the mid to late19th century, newspapers gradually drifted away from car-icatures and adopted what is known today as political car-tooning. Cartoons resemble caricatures but they aim tospecifically crystallize a point of social protest or sway pub-lic opinion. It is not all that surprising therefore that car-toonists are regarded as journalists in today’s mass media.

Thomas Nast (1840-1902) is regarded as the ‘foundingfather’ of modern day political cartooning. His legacyincludes the GOP Elephant, a standard symbol of theRepublican Party in the United States, and an unrelentingattack against the corruption of William Marcy Tweed andthe infamous Tammany Hall corruption ring in 1860s NewYork City.

Tweed despised Nast because Nast’s cartoons mobilizedpeople who demanded the smashing of the Tammany Ringand the removal of Tweed from power. Tweed was eventu-ally brought to trial and found guilty of 104 counts andsentenced to 12 years in prison. He appealed the decision

Carnival of CaricaturesThe Deadly Politics of Humour

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Q-NEWS | 31

Islamic philosophy. While it is not one of the four mainvirtues identified in Islamic thought, it is impossible to behumorous without hikma or wisdom. When humour ispresent it leads to a balanced temperament. The ability tolaugh appropriately, even at oneself, neither too much nortoo little, at the right time and place, for the right things, isa sign of courage, good health and well being. This is thesunnah of the Messenger of God.

Humour, like all other virtues, is subject to theAristotelian ‘golden mean.’ Humour is a balance betweentwo extremes; it arises neither from sense nor nonsense, butrather in the vacillation from one to the other. In otherwords, it occurs when meaning changes from absurd tomeaningful or from serious to frivolous. Humour revealsthe frivolousness in all things serious and the seriousness inall things frivolous. When it takes itself too serious itreverts to irony and if too frivolous, buffoonery.

According to Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, hap-piness is the greatest desire of the rational mind. Without ita person might sink into anger, wallow forever in the mis-ery of sadness. Ahmad Ibn-Muhammad Miskawayh in hisTahdhib al-Akhlaq explains that inner happiness must begiven an outlet and that’s what humour is. In the Quran the

word for happiness is sa’ada. Syed Naqib Al-Attas says

that to understand what sa’adameans one must ponder on itsopposite - shiqawa. Shiqawa,explains Al-Attas, is the condi-tion of a person so mired indisobedience to God that hisheart is perpetually in a stateof anxiety, anguish, fear, grief,misery, and regret. The sumtotal of these symptoms is notmerely a state of sadness, butone of ‘tragedy.’ Shiqawa is aresult of hubris, haughty pride,that prevents submission to theCreator.

In Imam Al-Ghazali’sphilosophical schema, shiqawais a characteristic of a person

and while awaiting re-trial fled the country. Tweed was later arrested in Spain because someone rec-

ognized him from a Nast cartoon. Before he died in prisona pauper, Tweed is reported to have said: “I don’t care whatthey print about me, most of my constituents can’t readanyway-but them damn pictures.”

From its genesis in the carnival, offensive humour hasalways been a blunt instrument in the hands of the com-mon man to be used against the powerful. The Jyllands-Posten caricatures came from the intellectual elites thatrepresent the dominant culture and targeted a harmless andmarginal religious minority in Danish society. This is notwhat the tradition of satire was meant for.

A relatively intelligent person knows that humour,offensive or not, is culturally determined. What is funny tosome may very well be an insult to others. Albert Brookswent Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World and near-ly ended up sparking off nuclear armageddon betweenIndia and Pakistan. That’s hardly amusing, goofy yes, per-haps even stupid, but not necessarily offensive, unless youare an Indian or a Pakistani who doesn’t like to be charac-terised as trigger-happy. Some comedians, even Muslimones, straddle the fence that divides humour from offensivehumour. When they like some-thing they use humour andwhen they don’t they use irony.

A Muslim will never acceptthat humour can be at theexpense of a person’s beliefs orideals, whether the Muslimbelieves they are valid or not.A person who fails to laugh ata crude or racist joke might say“I don’t share your sense ofhumour.” That’s what a lot ofMuslims should have saidinstead of torching Danishflags, storming embassies orbanning Danish products.

Humour - the kind thatdefuses hatred, anger, resent-ment and fanaticism - is avirtue in both western and

Flemming Rose of the now infamous Jyllands-Posten opined that anyoffense caused by the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, peace beupon him, was the price Muslims had to pay to be included in modernsociety. In other words, you had better get used to being laughed at. Nazim Baksh sees things differently. While offensive humour cansometimes be a blunt instrument employed against the powerful, its use -more often than not - is indicative of deep spiritual crises.

The Danish culturalintelligentsia, in contrast, holds

that satire - which normallyemploys irony as its weapon ofchoice - is part of their nationalidentity. Rose and others argue

that when satire is used against aperson or a particular group of

people they should feelprivileged, not insulted,

integrated and certainly notexcluded from Danish society. If

this reasoning sounds loopy,chances are it is.

32 | Q-NEWS

who is so overwhelmed by theseductions of this world that itcosts him the pleasures of thenext. Sa’ada, on the otherhand, arises out of obedienceto Allah for His pleasure alone.

A person may laugh or‘play the fool,’ watch endlesshours of Comedy Central, yetdeep in his soul there is ashiqawa that no amount oflaughter can erase. On theother hand, a person of sa’adamay laugh little and weepmuch - a Prophetic ideal - yetdeep in his soul the torch ofhappiness is flaming red. Inother words, laughter aloneproves (and provides) nothing.

Our blessed Messenger wasthe most balanced in all affairs. One of his names is ad-Dahhak, the Smiling One. He smiled because he embodiedhappiness. When he smiled, those who knew him tell us,there was no mistaking the radiant joy he created when heentered a room.

He used to say “I joke but I always tell the truth.” Hiswife Aisha is reported to have said “the Messenger wasalways making us laugh at home.” He also said “Thosewho sin while laughing will enter hell crying.” It is a sin inIslam to lie, deliberately insult, mock, ridicule, or revileothers.

An old woman came to the Messenger to ask him avitally important question: “Will I go to paradise?” TheProphet said “no, old people don’t go to paradise.”Dejected, the woman looked up at the face of theMessenger and saw him smiling and quickly realized thatwhat he told her was in jest. He then comforted her, “Godwill restore your youth before you enter paradise.”

The humour of the Messenger of God was contagious.He was once sitting with two Bedouin women who hadraised their voices in the presence of the Messengerdemanding spoils of war when Umar ibn al-Khattab passedby and overheard them. He knocked on the door of theProphet’s home and was asked to identify himself afterwhich he was given permission to enter. He saw theprophet sitting alone and asked who was with him. Atwhich point the Prophet identified the two women whohad gone into hiding. Umar chided them: ‘Do you hidefrom Umar and you raise your voice in the presence of theMessenger?’ The women responded: ‘Yes, indeed, becauseyou are rough O Umar and the Messenger of God is gen-tle.’ The Prophet laughed. He had to break this standoffbetween Umar’s poignant observation and the women’sreasonable fear of Umar. He said: ‘Indeed Umar, even ifSatan was coming down a road and encountered you, hewould take another path.’

One of the central comedic characters in the time of theProphet was the companion An-Nu’ayman ibn `Amr. Toput things in perspective, Nu’ayman fought with theMuslims during the battles at Badr, Uhud and Khandaq.Nu’ayman had an infectious laughter. He once convinced amerchant to send honey on his behalf to the home of the

Messenger. When the mer-chant demanded paymentform Nu’ayman he directedhim to the Prophet. TheProphet was surprised that themerchant was asking for pay-ment since he was told thatNu’ayman had sent him thehoney as a gift. Nu’aymanshowed up to explain himselfand insisted that since theProphet had eaten the honeyhe should pay for it. Laughingat Nu’ayman’s prank theProphet paid the merchant.Nu’ayman later said that hehad done two good deeds, hegot the Prophet to eat hisfavourite food and he madehim laugh.

There are many legendary Nu’ayman pranks.Nu’ayman played a significant role in Madinah. There isno record of the Prophet forbidding him to cease his prankseven though some of them were slapstick. This indicatesthat Nu’ayman had Prophetic sanction. It is reported thathe only stopped laughing and playing pranks when theMuslim community was rocked with internal dissent dur-ing the reign of Muawiyya.

If Nu’ayman didn’t exist Muslims would have had toinvent him. Any culture where humour does not exist lacksthe virtues of humility, generosity and mercy. Scratch theveneer of seriousness and you will find extremism andfanaticism. Humour peels away at self-deception and theglum satisfaction that the pious-looking bearded and tur-baned brother is better than the one without.

Nu’aymaniyya became the springboard for a flourish-ing tradition of humour among Muslims. Today Muslimparents and teachers narrate the tales of Mulla Nasruddinin order to establish simple truths with their children.Humour, because it can only laugh at what it loves orrespects, is a useful tool that should be used to teach oth-ers about our tradition.

Muslims have to stop making rage their first instinctivereaction to an offence. Members of Quraysh poked fun atthe Prophet by making reference to him as “Mudammam”(a play on Muhammad) which means ugly. This offensivehumour, irony if you wish, was done at the expense of thereal name of the Prophet and so it was exceptionallypainful to his companions. Muhammad was a unique namein Makkah at that time and it means “the one who ispraised.” It is the most popular name in the world today.The companions complained to the Prophet with tears intheir eyes. His response was that they should ignore themocking laughter associated with “Mudammam” becausehis name is Muhammad and “Mudammam” can only besomeone other than Muhammad. He defused the irony,neutralized it, pulled the rug out from under it, with gen-tleness, wit, and humility. Muslims too could have lookedat the offensive depiction and simply said: “That’s not ourProphet.”

From its genesis in thecarnival, offensive humour hasalways been a blunt instrument

in the hands of the common manto be used against the powerful.The Jyllands-Posten caricatures

came from the intellectual elitesthat represent the dominant

culture and targeted a harmlessand marginal religious minority

in Danish society. This is notwhat the tradition of satire was

meant for.

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34 | Q-NEWS

FEATURE

That contemporary nasheed music has had a majorimpact on young Muslims in Britain and NorthAmerica and beyond is undeniable. It has provided a

soundtrack for the emergence of a distinctly religious culturalidentity and has provided an aesthetic artistic expression andlanguage that is deliberately at odds with the bling-bling,bump-and-grind vulgarity that is the hallmark of so muchpopular music today. The pioneers of this “Islamic sound”worked against the odds to create what today is an emergingindustry and yet many of those same pioneers are nowdeclaring that the scene today is no longer one that theyrecognise.

A decade ago, there was no argument over how an artist’simage was to be marketed - one would be lucky to get hold ofa tape, let alone catch a glimpse of the artists themselves.Nowadays, concerts - filling major venues like Royal AlbertHall and Wembley Arena - have brought a new publicdimension to ‘Islamic entertainment’. When I started listeningto nasheeds, it was a way of creating a musical connection tomy spirituality. Now it’s about screaming fans, autographedCDs and tickets selling on eBay.

I’m not trying to “bah humbug” the genre - but I want toknow how the nasheed industry - its artists, promoters andproducers - maintain its core purpose and value when thesavvy consumers are obviously demanding and expecting aproduct that is thoroughly at home among HMV’s charttoppers.

When Dawud Wharnsby-Ali walked on stage for his firstlive musical performance since becoming Muslims, it waswith some trepidation. It was 1997 and he was singing at the

first major ‘Islamic music’ concert in Toronto, Canada not farfrom his hometown of Kitchener. At one point during thesecond set, he doubled over gagging. What he later describedas a profound lack of “spit control”, seemed to the audiencea moment of raw emotion. He had stopped his performancein the middle of poignant verse on the sacrifice of the ProphetIbrahim. Quickly recovering his breath and clearing his throatDawud continued. Most of the audience couldn’t hold backtheir tears. An unlikely star was born.

Wharnsby-Ali is often introduced with two words - totalhumility. One of the first popular nasheed artists in English,his lyrics are introspective and catchy. Working withSoundvision, a US-based producer and distributor of Islamiceducation products - Wharnsby-Ali produced his first fouralbums of spiritual songs for Muslim children doing few liveperformances. “I was totally against live performances,” herecalls, “because I had a tremendous fear that live showswould lead to songs about Allah being treated like some sortof ‘alternative’ to mainstream music. For me, music hasalways been a spiritual tool. My songs about Allah orMuhammad were never meant to be just a form ofentertainment, but a form of worship and learning. It’s thecase with all the songs I write. I have always consideredmyself a ‘writer’, not a ‘pop singer’.”

The growing popularity of his folksy nasheeds meant hewas invited to sing and talk to young people and soon beganto oblige. At one concert organised for a children’s group hearrived only to find, five hundred adults and fifteen children.Perhaps they were looking for their “inner child".

With the recent proliferation of slickly organised nasheed

How do you feel about going to a nasheed concert? Elated? Cautious?

Determined (especially if Sami Yusuf is coming) to get in to the venue

at any cost? Are contemporary Muslims performers recreating the same

MTV-style hype that their brand of religiously-inspired music was

supposed to spurn? With nasheed music become increasingly slick and

corporate, Suma Din reports on a growing concern that this promising

industry has lost its bearings - a victim of its own phenomenal success.

The Day the

Music Died

Q-NEWS | 35

importantly, with God. Some people may interpret my workas ear candy, while others may let the messages penetratemore deeply into their hearts. As an artist though, I know Iam not a puppet. I don’t write for an audience, I don’t writefor a specific faith group, I don’t write to sell CDs. I writewhat feels true to me.”

The sentiment is admirable and important. Nasheedwriting is a genuine attempt to connect with a communitythat needs a sense of belonging and a positive self image. Afew years ago going to a nasheed concert was less fun thangoing to a wake. There was no clapping, cheering or publicexpression of support or appreciation for the artist except theoccasional ‘takbeer’. The scene during the recent MeemMusic organised nasheed tour was completely different - acrowd of more than a thousand young people cheered andlaughed their way through a dizzying array of performersfrom both sides of the Atlantic. For some such displays ofyouthful fervour is a little too pop-concerty. On this point,Dawud disagrees with the naysayers, saying he feelsprivileged to be part of young people “expressing themselves”and sharing an atmosphere of warmth, and feeling theybelong by clapping, calling out and “connecting” with hismessage.

What bother him are the faux trappings of an inventedstardom. He is dead set against “being whisked off stage likea pop diva afterwards by over- the-top security crews, thenbeing hidden in a pretentious hotel like some sort of MiddleEastern dignitary, being told I can’t chat with friends andaudience members because time won’t permit... I dislike thevibe backstage where artists expect they deserve royal

concerts, Wharnsby-Ali has been reticent to perform. “Iwanted to assert my own vibe on the medium - bringing morethan just ‘songs’ to the stage, but also the ‘in between songkhutbahs’ reminding the audience to focus on issues, not justthe songs or the artists. When I started performing in the UKwith The Fletcher Valve Drummers I was directly aiming tobuck the whole lip-sync trend, where audience members payto see a live concert and end up seeing singers with phoneybacking vocalists and pre-recorded music. I truly wantedaudiences to feel the power of music and rhythm, andexperience a ‘live’ show and not a ‘lie’ show.”

Zain Bhika from South Africa is another one of thenasheed scene’s well known performers. His work with YusufIslam’s Jamal Records label secured him internationalexposure. He too is jaded by current trends. After a recentperformance with Wharnsby-Ali at a small recital organisedby Q-News at London’s Goodenough College, he explainedhow promotional appearances start to impinge on thecreativity of an artist, putting pressure on them to think ofwhat the audience now wants to hear. “It’s the ‘the flavour ofthe month’ phenomena which defeats everything a true artistis all about.”

And what is the artist’s real passion? Wharnsby-Alianswers without missing a beat: “My songs are a reflection ofmy life, my faith and my observations of the world aroundme. I write about life, death, love, hope, social issues,spiritual struggles, identity, belonging... in the end, there is notelling how it will be interpreted. Some listeners will findsome sense of peace, or motivation to better theirrelationships with their families, communities, or most

36 | Q-NEWS

FEATURE

treatment or more money forshows and a host of volunteersto make them tea at the snap ofa finger.”

Wharnsby-Ali wants Islamicmusic to take a different path,where artists, promoters and themusic companies are moreaccountable to listeners and tothe original intent of the music.Consumers and listeners toohave to stop “stop acting likesheep and ask, ‘Who is thisartist...really? Are theylegitimate? Does he or she reallyrepresent what I believe in andstand for, or am I just hyped onthem because they are all therage?’ Eventually I hope we seeyoung artists get out there withtheir self-penned songs, in aneffort to change the world forthe better, not just cash in onsome CD sales.”

Tayyeb Shah knows a thingor two about the musicindustry. He started his careerwith Mountain of Light label inits early years and was instrumental in a number of landmarkprojects including Yusuf Islam’s I Have No Cannons ThatRoar compilation of Muslim music of Bosnia that came outat the height of the ethnic cleansing campaign.

Shah is now the successful Managing Director of MeemMusic, one the world’s leading nasheed record labels.Undoubtedly the most experienced producer in Britain, Shahhas produced nearly fifty albums as well as organisingconcerts across the world. The recent Celebrate Eid Tourfeatured American “boy band” 786, Malaysian nasheedpioneers Raihan, Aa’shiq al Rasul and comedians AzharUsman and Preacher Moss. Tayyeb sees the concerts as “ameans for the collective remembrance of Allah and HisProphet (saw). It allows the audience to consume an art formmore in keeping with their deen and one which hopes toimbibe good, positive messages. I’ve been involved in thisscene for over a decade and I can honestly say everyone I’vemet from the artists, labels, producers, organisers, down isinvolved primarily for spreading God’s message andpromoting it through the medium of nasheed, sacrificingwork, holiday time, family time, money and much effort.”

However, he too sees the need to reassess things whenasked about artist promotion, image and concert atmosphere.This young industry, he says, “will understandably gothrough a learning process where the influence of the Westernmusic industry impinges in a negative way… but these areteething issues and very pale imitations of what goes onelsewhere in mainstream society. All of us need to be wary oftoo much imitation of the mainstream music scene. We needto involve and enlist the better help of our scholars in theWest and preferably those who have a background andaffinity for music and nasheeds.”

Advice coming from Imams such as Johari Abdul-Malikof Washington, DC. Imam Johari, a singer and musician

before he embraced Islam, gets rightto the heart of these concerns:“authentic nasheed that willprovide by both content andcontext. The proper Islamicunderstanding is essential. By wayof context, the presentation of suchnasheed should be in anenvironment that encourages thebest Islamic conduct and character.This should become an excellentalternative, particularly to ouryouth - to learn about the principlesof Islam from the content, and theconduct and adab of the Muslimsby way of context.”

Nevertheless, Shah - whomanages five nasheed artists andthree nasheed groups - knows thatit’s difficult balance to achieve. He’sgot to produce quality, marketableentertainment, while retaininghumility and sincerity on stage andin promotion. The challenge is notmuch different that that facing‘Christian Rock’ or other religiousmusical genres.

Tayyeb observes that “artistshave in recent years moved more and more away from deliveringoutstanding vocal performances to providing an ‘entertaining’stage act and have sought to competitively outdo one another inthe things they do on stage. Moreover, oftentimes I fear they failto see the effects of their words and actions on stage - these canbe detrimental to nasheed scene as a whole.”

As one veteran Muslim activist remarked to me recently, theorganisers have a whole minefield of issues to deal with. Theirearnest efforts are to deliver something of benefit and quality tothe listeners. In reality though, they have to juggle a range ofviews in their own organisation, record label stipulations, theartists’ well being and choices, as well as a host of practicalities.Issues around fame, having a fan following, audience reactionsopen up philosophical, theological debates. There are still thosewithin Muslim communities who condemn music as beingprohibited. To them the nasheed scene with its concerts, CDs andpromotion are an anathema. The recent decision by DawudWharnsby-Ali, Zain Bhikha and more importantly Yusuf Islam topick up their guitars again has raised the hackles of this vocalminority.

It was the alternative sound and message that first attractedme to ‘nasheed artists’. The words and delivery were all about thevalues that mainstream music had lost - simplicity, sincerity,humility. I never thought the music would ever be a scene.Frankly, neither did the devotees of grunge or rap. Nasheed musicis certainly following the trajectory of its irreverent ‘once-were-alternative’ cousins. Perhaps that’s the way of the industry oneither side of the line that divides sacred music from profane.

I was recently given a gift - a brand new nasheed album, by abrand new artist. It’s got all the qualities that drew me to thegenre years ago. Maybe I’m nostalgic, but it’s his first album. He’snever had a photo shoot and doesn’t seem to have a PR agenteither. If his sound is as exciting to others as it is to me, it’s onlya matter of time, alas, before he’ll have all that and more.

Issues around fame, having a

fan following, audience

reactions open up

philosophical, theological

debates. There are still those

within Muslim communities

who condemn music as being

prohibited. To them the

nasheed scene with its

concerts, CDs and promotion

are an anathema.

The recent decision by

Dawud Wharnsby-Ali, Zain

Bhikha and more importantly

Yusuf Islam to pick up their

guitars again has raised the

hackles of this vocal minority.

The first thing

people notice

about

HHaabbiibb AAllii aall--JJiiffrrii is his

smile - broad,

welcoming, honest.

But beneath his gentle

demeanour is a steely

determination to

engage in a genuine

dialogue on the

meaningful role Islam

and Muslims must play

in the West. He’s no

pushover. Well read

and well travelled,

Habib Ali is a

compelling religious

scholar who brings a

keen sense of social

justice and relevance to

his teaching. A critic of

the economic and

political policies that

have brought misery to

places like Iraq,

Palestine and Africa,

he is a spiritual activist

who calls on Muslims

to reject the path of

anger and seek a

higher moral ground.

AAbbdduull--RReehhmmaann MMaalliikk

reports from London,

Copenhagen and Abu

Dhabi on the man and

his mission.

The Mercy Warrior

38 | Q-NEWS

COVER

“With all due respect, Isimply cannot under-stand the nature of the

devotion you have for your Prophet,”the journalist said incredulously.“There is simply nothing I think ofthat holds that kind of sacred valuefor me. Perhaps, my love for my chil-dren is the nearest thing I can thinkof.”

“Yes,” exclaimed Habib Ali al-Jifri, smiling. “We both love our chil-dren and would sacrifice anything fortheir well being. We feel even morelove and adoration than that for ourProphet. He is dearer to us even thanour own children, even more thanourselves.”

Sitting in a Turkish restaurant inLondon’s Farringdon Road, Habib Alial-Jifri was meeting with a group ofjournalists, free speech defenders andhuman rights activists to discuss thenow well-konown bayan or declara-tion of Islamic scholars issued in theaftermath of the global Muslim out-rage following publication of theJyllands-Posten cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, peace beupon him, across Europe. The landmark declaration condemnedthe violent demonstrations and the resulting attacks on Danishembassies, affirmed the principle of freedom of speech and ideasas something enshrined in Islam, while calling on the Danish gov-ernment and the international community to enact the necessarylegislation to protect sacred symbols and prevent libellous attackson recognised founders of religious traditions. Signed by some ofcontemporary Islam’s most important scholars - including theEgyptian Grand Mufti Ali Jumua, Mauritanian jurist ShaykhAbdullah bin Bayyah and Syrian theologian Dr Saeed Ramadanal-Bouti - the document had come about as a result of painstakingnegotiation and shuttle diplomacy much of which was carried outby Habib Ali himself.

Habib Ali listened carefully to the sharp criticisms of the dec-laration raised during the meeting. When one participantexclaimed that there were parts of the document that “just didn’tmake sense” and were “simply incompatible” with a modernunderstanding of free expression, Habib Ali responded, “then youmust write down your concerns, so I can take them back to thesignatories. This declaration is not the end of a process but itsbeginning. We need intelligent people to respond to it, criticise it.Your comments will help clarify our perspectives and make themstronger.”

One leading free speech rights campaigner remarked to meafter the meeting, “I like your Shaykh. He’s young, he’s energeticand - I’m not sure I should say this - he’s very handsome. Hesmiles a lot and I usually don’t trust people who smile too much,but he’s different.”

Since he started coming regularly to Europe and NorthAmerica to teach and speak, the thousands who have come to lis-ten to him would certainly not disagree. Even though he speaksonly in Arabic and his lectures are understood by most of his lis-teners through translation, his message resonates profoundly withyoung Western Muslims.

Habib Ali Zain al Abideen ibnAbd al-Rahman al-Jifri hailsfrom the Hadramawt Valley in

southern Yemen. His father Abd al-Rahman al-Jifri was one of Yemen’smost influential political figures. Nowin exile, he remains an importantopposition leader and serves as chairof the National Opposition Front.Abd al-Rahman al-Jifri has consistent-ly rejected violence and advocatednational unity on the grounds ofhuman rights and democracy.

Habib Ali took a decidedly differ-ent path. Studying in Tarim, a historiccity known for its community ofIslamic scholars, Habib Ali studiedand served some of the most illustri-ous scholars of the modern age. In thevalley of Hadramawt the descendentsof the Prophet Muhammad himselfsettled generations ago and it is hisexample that is celebrated in rich localpoetry and devotional music. Thestudies in Tarim are more than justacademic pursuits - they represent arigorous lifestyle of prayer, study and

service. At the heart of the rigorous training is a gentle spirituali-ty that constantly reminds the young scholars to be mindful of theProphetic example and to place his merciful, generous ways at theheart of one’s faith. Western students returning from Tarimdescribe it as a place that reminds them of the Madinah talkedabout in stories of the Prophet.

Sitting in Habib Ali’s modest hotel room overlooking a quietCopenhagen street, I glance at the morning edition ofPolitiken, Denmark’s leading progressive daily. A picture of

Habib Ali kneeling in prayer almost covers the entire front page.Few outside of Denmark would have understood the significanceof the image. The previous night Habib Ali had debated represen-tatives of the right-wing Danish People’s Party (DPP) and thecountry’s governing Liberals. Alongside him were the Kuwaiti-based Tariq Suwaidan and the dynamic Egyptian preacher AmrKhaled, who like Habib Ali are popular figures on Arab satellitetelevision. The debate took place in a cavernous hall that was oncehome to the Politiken’s antiquated printing presses and has recent-ly been turned into a venue for public debate and discussion. ForDanish freedom of speech advocates this is hallowed ground,where the Politiken’s campaigning journalists took on Denmark’spolitical establishment for decades.

Habib Ali’s very public prayer in the hall raised the eyes ofmany. One Danish journalist later confided to me, “That picturehad more impact than the debate itself. Here was a Muslim schol-ar - with a turban and robes - completely at home in the temple offree speech. It was like he was honouring our holy ground.”

Politiken’s editorial line on the cartoons has been praised byDanish Muslims who have had few public defenders in the lastfew months. During the heated exchange, DPP parliamentarianSoren Espersen shouted down criticisms from young Muslims call-ing them “pathetic complainers.” “Just get on with it,” he bel-lowed to the jeers of the predominantly young Danish Muslimcrowd. “We are not here to be your welcoming committee, if you

Q-NEWS | 39

COVER

and the Danish people themselves.Dialogue must address the ignorancepeople have about Islam. But wecannot treat them as they treat us -as all the same.”

He has particular praise for theDanish Youth Council, an importantnational organisation seen as thetraining ground for future politi-cians: “Many of the Danish youthwho took part are activists andfuture leaders who can go and helpchange public opinion. This dialoguehas opened the door for a culturalexchange between us and the futureintellectual class here. In turn, theseyoung Danes have been surprised byour openness and by how little theyreally know about Islam. I feel thatmuch of the press here does nothighlight the positive contributionsthat Danish Muslims are making. Itis like there is a sort of general insis-tence here of not really keeping thepeople in the picture, sort of cloud-ing their opinion so that the onlyroad that can be seen leads towardsclash and conflict.”

Aday earlier Habib Ali haddelivered the Friday sermonat a storefront mosque in the

heart of Copenhagen’s Arab community belonging to the Wakforganisation whose leader Ahmed Abu Laban has been at thehead of the campaign to internationalise the cartoon controversy.Habib’s message was short and direct: we love our Prophet morethan we love ourselves, but loving him means never compromis-ing his high ethical standard and it means never being controlledby our anger and rage.

After the sermon I met Musa, an Eritrean with Danish citi-zenship. He was heartened by Habib’s words, “al-Jifri is a veryastute and clever man. I enjoyed his khutbah - it was short, effec-tive and to the point. The Prophet demanded a lot from us and Ithink we have let him down. It’s hard not to be angry though, wego through a lot here.”

Musa works as a lab technician and has been in Denmark for35 years. I ask if he feels Danish. He laughs sceptically, “Danish?I feel like a stranger, I feel like an outsider. I feel like people willnot reach out to me so I won’t reach out to them. I can never runaway from my faith and it’s my faith that concerns the people Iwork with. They are always poking fun. I just keep quiet.” Musais angry. He says that while Muslims may be divided about whatAbu Laban did, “we are united against munafiqs like NaserKhader [leader of the secular Muslims who claim to be moderates.The government uses people like him against us. At least AbuLaban reflects my anger.”

I tell Habib about the young men at the largest London rallywho weren’t just talking about the cartoons but about Iraq,Palestine, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. One young person fromEast London declared that, “There is no Britain! There is noAmerica! There’s just La ilaha ilallah!” How do we deal with ananger that simmering and feels like it could boil over at any

say you are Danish then you have allthe rights of citizenship. I’m sick andtired of this nonsense!”

When Danish Muslim activist,Imran Hussain, reminded him thatsenior DPP members had calledDanish Muslims “cockroaches” anda “cancerous growth” that needed tobe excised, he merely shrugged.

Habib Ali’s response was point-ed. “It is this attitude of arroganceand this kind of dismissive behaviourthat divides people. You do not con-sider these young people part of yournation and your society. It is youwho are creating a ‘them’ and ‘us’and yet you don’t even realise thatthere are people who look like youand have your ethnicity, yet they areMuslims. Your idea of who is Danishand who isn’t is confused.”

Habib Ali asked for all thoseMuslims in the audience who wereethnically Danish to stand up - thesewere converts themselves, or chil-dren of converts. At least two dozenaudience members stood up to thethunderous applause of the crowd.Espersen shook his head and seemedfor the first time that evening to be ata loss for words.

Habib Ali walked into the room and greeted me, smiling,immediately asking if he could get me some coffee orbreakfast. Dressed in an immaculately pressed, white jal-

abiyya and wearing an equally unblemished skullcap, he showshis youthfulness in his broad gait and energetic, eager manner.This morning however, his altogether pleasant and welcomingdemeanour cannot hide the tiredness around his eyes. Since arriv-ing in Copenhagen he has maintained a punishing pace - meeting,speaking and doing press appearances from fajr prayers to lateinto the night. He has waded into a deeply fractured Muslim com-munity and is seeking to help create a forum where disparate andclashing parties can at least talk to each other. When he is not inmeetings or on a stage, he is on his mobile keeping in touch withhis many projects all over the world.

His reason for being in Denmark is the launch of a dialogueinitiative organised by Amr Khaled’s RightStart Foundation andthe Danish Institute for International Relations, involving some50 young people from Denmark and the Muslim world.

“We all have to stop speaking about ‘Islam and the West’,” hesays. “There is no longer any ‘us’ and ‘them’. Islam is in the West.It is part of the fabric of the West and it is a reality which is notgoing to go away. The question is when will Europeans realise thisand deal with Muslims as people who are no longer outsiders, butpart of them?”

Habib Ali is full of passion as he speaks and his exhaustionseems to melt away as he reflects on the dialogue: “This trip hasassured me of something I already suspected that the Danish peo-ple are good people, that they are reasonable people. I am con-vinced that we have to make a distinction between those in thegovernment and who supported the publication of the cartoons

“The Prophet is not alive in

people’s hearts, he’s not alive in

their spiritual wayfaring or in the

way they do things and even in

the way they list their priorities,

and how they deal with others

around them. This is what we’re

missing, this is the real problem,”

Habib Ali contends. “We are

angry about the cartoons, we

showed the world that. We

showed them our anger but we

didn’t show them the love for the

Prophet Muhammad. So through

this year’s mawlid celebrations,

it’s important that people find out

why we love him, and through

the remembrance of his noble

characteristics they will know the

reasons for our love.”

40 | Q-NEWS

moment? “We need to emphasise that

while there is legitimate reasons foranger it must be mediated by thesacred law. Anger is no excuse forignorance of our principles and ourway of life. We have to revive thespirit of brotherly connections,whether it is to neighbours, family orfriends to bring back this connectionbetween people, and to do it in amanner that is informed by theProphetic guidance. Connectionwith others on a brotherly level or aneighbourly level eventually leads toa lessening of the anger, because wesee when these connections are builtup and further developed. We needto renew our core belief in theunseen - that is why we make sinceresupplication to Allah, because wehave certainty about Him. If some-one feels frustrated and he feels alldoors are closed, then the door of Allah is the one that is alwaysopen. Frustration should guide one to look to Allah for guidanceon what he should be doing.”

Habib Ali is not just a spiritual teacher detached from theconcerns of Muslim communities. At a major public lec-ture in London last December he took a strong political

line, calling on people of justice to oppose the occupation of Iraqand Palestine and use every political means of opposing policies athome and abroad that are unjust. His message of civic action isguided though by Prophetic principles. The high moral groundand ethics of faith can never be compromised in the struggle forsocial justice and peace. His is a spiritual activism borne of nobleconviction.

“The Prophet is not alive in people’s hearts, he’s not alive intheir spiritual wayfaring or in the way they do things and even inthe way they list their priorities, and how they deal with othersaround them. This is what we’re missing, this is the real problem,”Habib Ali contends.

“We are angry about the cartoons, we showed the world that.We showed them our anger but we didn’t show them the love forthe Prophet Muhammad. So through this year’s mawlid celebra-tions, it’s important that people find out why we love him, andthrough the remembrance of his noble characteristics they willknow the reasons for our love.” He has recently adopted theArabic slogan Hayyun fi Qulubina (Alive in Our Hearts) as a ral-lying cry for this call to adopt the Prophetic values.

How do you explain to someone, like the journalist at the dis-cussion in London, why we love the Prophet? “People love in gen-eral for three reasons jamal, kamal, and ihsan. Jamal is beauty,kamal is completeness or perfection and ihsan is excellence. Wehave to get out the message that we see all these three aspects inthe Prophet and it’s these attributes that people actually need intheir lives today.”

Habib Ali is an impeccable listener. When others are speaking,he’s completely focused and just to be sure, he asks questions thatshow that he’s been paying attention. Habib Ali is also a keenobserver; he notices body language and pays attention to all thosenon-verbal cues that communicate so much. It’s not a sneaky kind

of observation, but one that seems toinform his interactions with others.Like every good teacher, he lets hiseyes take the scene in.

There is always something onoffer when Habib is around. Hemakes sure there are gifts for guests,food for visitors and the offer of helpand assistance whatever the situation.Sitting in on one late night strategysession, I noticed him quietly open abox of chocolates, and proceed to lobthem at those assembled urging themto step lively and have a sweet. Itbroke the seriousness in the roomand everybody started laughing.

The process of initiating thesecross-cultural and international dia-logues hasn’t been easy. Some leadingpersonalities in the Arab world havedismissed these attempts at exchangeas simply misguided and Habib Ali’sscholarly credentials have been ques-

tioned: stick to preaching, say the naysayers, and talking aboutmatters of the soul, and leave the big issues to people who under-stand global politics.

Habib Ali is undeterred. He embraces the idea that the worldis now no more than a global village and is acutely aware that hismessage is not just the right one, but that it is resonating withyoung Muslims.

Last month, in Abu Dhabi, Habib Ali invited a group ofDanish youth leaders - with several Muslims amongst them -and a group of young Muslims from Europe, North

America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, to come togetherfor a four day gathering entitled Litaarafu: The Search for MutualUnderstanding organised under the direction of the TabahFoundation, the UAE-based think-tank and research centre ofwhich Habib Ali is the director. Over four days of discussions,debate, and an evening under the desert skies, the participantseventually reached some common ground. Strong differenceremained, but what Tabah hoped to accomplish through the ini-tiative was to create an example of good practice, documentingwhy such dialogues really do work.

It’s easy to be cynical, after all a handful of well-educated,largely liberal minded students aren’t going to change the opinionsof nations. However, the fruits of the exchange were seen in littleways.

The night before the closing ceremonies, a small group of del-egates gathered around a laptop in the darkened conference cen-tre trying to negotiate the text of the resolution that would be pre-sented to the press in the morning. After several hours of horsetrading words and phrases, the declaration seemed like it was inhand. That was until one of the Danish student leaders suggestedthat there should be a phrase stating that the Danes had learnedabout Muslim faith and practice and had also begun to under-stand the depth of love and devotion Muslims had for theProphet. The objections surprisingly came from some of theMuslim draftees who felt such a statement would seem lopsided infavour of the Muslim delegates, but the Danes were adamant.“We want to demonstrate support for Habib Ali’s vision. We wantpeople here and abroad to know that it has been a success.” In the

There is always something on

offer when Habib is around. He

makes sure there are gifts for

guests, food for visitors and the

offer of help and assistance

whatever the situation. Sitting in

on one late night strategy session,

I noticed him quietly open a box

of chocolates, and proceed to lob

them at those assembled urging

them to step lively and have a

sweet. It broke the seriousness in

the room and everybody started

laughing.

COVER

end the naming of the Prophet Muhammad in the declaration wasfollowed by “peace be upon him” - included, again, at the insis-tence of the Danes.

At the closing ceremonies, the delegates gave Habib Ali al-Jifriand fellow guest renowned scholar Dr Saeed Ramadan al-Boutithree standing ovations. One of the delegates, a young Danishwoman, said, “Without Habib Ali we would never have had thisopportunity. He is our friend and a true teacher.”

Habib Ali continues to teach for several weeks a year at Daral Mustafa, one of the many seminaries in Tarim. He stillstudies with several master scholars and returns to his

teachers for guidance regularly. During an unusually quietmoment during his whirlwind Copenhagen trip, I asked Habib Aliwhat he remembered most about his teachers.

“When I was ten years old, I remember spending time [with myteacher] Habib Abd al-Qadir Saqqaf. I saw the shama’il of theProphet Muhammad reflected in him before I even read about themin a book. When I was with Habib Abd al-Qadir he reminded meof the mercy of the Prophet, the gentleness of the Prophet and thepatience and forbearance of the Prophet, peace be upon him. WhenI think of Habib Ahmed Mashhur Al Haddad, I remember his pres-ence with Allah. He was always present with his Lord, and thisawareness was palpable. It affected us deeply. I’d find stories in thebooks of tasawwuf that speak of how some of the great masterswere in a constant state of witnessing the presence of Allah - I feltthat in him.”

After the conclusion of the Abu Dhabi dialogue, Habib Aliprepared for another long stretch of traveling - Syria toKenya to the United Kingdom for the Uniting for the

Prophet 2006 program at Wembley Conference Centre. He feels agreat responsibility to help others spiritually. I ask aloud, whatsustains him in his work?

“There is an authentic narration of the Prophet Muhammadthat after he is first granted intercession on the Day of Judgment,they will still remain some people in hellfire who are Muslim, andso the Prophet, peace be upon him - not wanting this to happen -will prostrate himself before the throne of Allah and ask Allah totake them out. Allah would grant his request and still some wouldremain. So he would return to Allah a second time, and a thirdtime, until one last person would remain in the hellfire. And Allahwould then say that anyone who just said ‘La ilaha ilallah’ withhonesty even once in their life should enter Paradise. So seeingthat after all of the struggles and all of the strife, and all that theProphet, peace be upon him, sacrificed for this ummah, he didn’twant to go to Paradise - he wouldn’t feel comfortable there - whileeven one of the people who believed in him remained back. Thisgives the impetus and the inspiration to continue calling to Allahand the truth. We have to do this for the sake of the Prophet, peacebe upon him, because we don’t want him to feel this discomforton the Day of Judgment.” He smiles and asks, “It just makessense, doesn’t it?”

Habib Ali’s spiritual activism seeks to bridge the false gapbetween Islam and the West, Muslim and non-Muslim. His call tohis brothers and sisters to seek a higher moral ground without giv-ing up their commitment to their faith, their Prophet and socialjustice is just the kind of difficult challenge that many youngMuslims - jaded by circular, angry and impotent political rhetoric- might be willing to embrace.

Photographs courtesy of Peter Sanders.

MEMORIAL

Your excellencies, Archbishop, Chief Rabbi, LadyBadawi - ladies and gentlemen. There are many peo-ple here today who are infinitely better qualified to

speak about dear Zaki Badawi than I am and who canspeak with far greater authority on the role he played with-in our Muslim community.

All I can contribute is the deep sense of affection andadmiration which I felt for, first and foremost, a trulyremarkable character whose genius lay in the way he couldcommunicate the wisdom of the heart across so manyboundaries - boundaries of culture, religion and ethnicity.

Zaki had come to play such a vital role in the life ofour country and in the lives of so many people like myselfthat his sudden and unexpected departure from our midsthas merely heightened our immense sense of real loss; thekind of loss we experience when a noble and veteran treeis uprooted from a much loved landscape.

It takes us a long time to become used to the terriblegap left behind; to the absence of the reassuring sound ofthe wind through its old, familiar branches. If we feel thissense of emptiness, then how much worse it must be for hisdevoted wife and family, to whom my heart goes out onthis special occasion.

Thinking back, I must have come across Zaki Badawiquite some years ago - perhaps fifteen - at a time when Ifelt it was essential to establish a small group of people

who could help advise me on issues surrounding theMuslim Community in this country and on wider Islamicmatters elsewhere in the world.

I wanted to learn and understand as much as I couldabout the rich complexities within Islam; about the subtlenuances surrounding a whole framework for life; aboutthe origins and history of one of the three great Abrahamicfaiths founded, above all, on the profound mystery ofdivine revelation.

And, of course, it is divine revelation that forms thecentral tap-root from which the Abrahamic traditionsdraw their inspiration. Zaki understood this so well andtaught me so much about the Islamic heritage - what hedescribed to me in a letter prior to my visit to the MuslimCollege two years ago as “a common treasure from whichwe take its most precious jewels to enrich our life andadvance our knowledge.”

He went on to say that “our programme realizes thatthe common language of faith is that of beauty and spiri-tualism.” He told me that he knew these aspects were closeto my heart, along with a love of Islamic and traditionalarchitecture. And why do I have a love of such things?

Because of an awareness that the beauty of form, pat-tern and colour (as manifested in Islamic and other tradi-tional arts) is not simply aesthetically pleasing or demon-strative of good design, but is representative of a more pro-

A Loss of a

Common TreasureThe late Dr Zaki Badawi was loved well beyond the Muslim communities he

served over his long and extraordinary career. The morning of 16 March

2006 saw a remarkable gathering of men and women who came to London’s

School of Oriental and African Studies to remember this legacy. In his

moving eulogy, HHRRHH TThhee PPrriinnccee ooff WWaalleess spoke of Dr Badawi’s desire to

reconcile hearts to the way of God and to see faith not just as a common

treasure but a means to give beauty and truth back to the world.

42 | Q-NEWS

Q-NEWS | 43

MEMORIAL

found universal order. Likewise, that the intricate and

subtle patterns of Nature transcendthe purely decorative realm andembody a profound and timelessbeauty. It is all to do with beauty, asZaki so well knew - or with truth,goodness and beauty, as Platoshould persistently remind us.

Have you noticed that themore we tear down the beautyaround us which has sustainedpeople’s souls for generations, theuglier our souls become; the lesscourteous and considerate our sur-roundings are, the less courteousand considerate we are to oneanother; the more the ego predom-inates in everything, the moreoffensive we become to Natureherself, and then literally nothing isallowed to be sacred?

And yet to have any chance ofrepairing the bridges between ourfaiths and to restore the harmonythat is surely God’s greatest andmost mysterious gift to the wholecreated universe and the essence ofMan’s relationship with the Divine,surely we have to try to understandand to respect what is sacred toeach of us?

This, of course, was Zaki’sgreat genius, as exemplified in hisprogramme for the Muslim Collegewhich seeks to produce leaderswho not only master Islamic sub-jects, but who also have a fullappreciation of other faiths andcultures, especially British culture.

One of the main objects for mybeing here today is to pay tribute toZaki’s noble, compassionate andfar-sighted vision - a vision thatunderstood, above all, the crucialimportance of a heart-centred,enlightened Muslim religious edu-cation that he believed so passion-ately would help Muslims to inte-grate into British Society without -and here is the crux of the matter - losing their identity.

I am also here today to beg you to ensure that his lega-cy is protected and nurtured - a legacy made manifest inthe graduation of competent Imams, responsible journal-ists and enlightened political leaders such as the ministerresponsible for religious affairs in Malaysia, Dato’ AbdulHamid Zainal Abidin, and a member of the AfghanConstitution drafting Committee, Fatima Gailani.

Zaki understood so well that at the end of the day lead-ership is the key to everything. After all, it was Napoleonwho said that there is “no such thing as bad soldiers, onlybad officers.” You only have to look at so many of the dis-

astrous conflicts around the world- such as in the Balkans - to seehow people who had lived side byside for generations, and whosemosques, synagogues and churcheshad shared the centres of theirtowns and cities were suddenlyinflamed by passionate hatredtowards each other.

Distorted versions of divinerevelation in the hands of distortedleadership inevitably engenderappalling violence, hatred anddestruction of other people’s livesand most sacred shrines and treas-ured objects.

Zaki devoted so much of hislife to an investment in enlightenedleadership for the future because heknew that, ultimately, it was notthe fault of the great religionsthemselves that so much death anddestruction occurs, but the leader-ship that causes the misinterpreta-tion of the original divine inspira-tion and the deliberate obfuscationof the profound truth that we areall following slightly different pathsto the same ultimate, universalTruth that all the greatest mysticsthroughout human history havedefined as residing in the divineattributes of mercy, love, compas-sion and, indeed, beauty. The great14th century poet, Hafiz, wrote:Every edifice you see in the world isflawed subject to destruction,Except the edifice of love, which isflawless and indestructible.

Zaki knew that there could beno true peace between us all with-out peace in our own, individualhearts. His life’s work was surelydedicated to nurturing that percep-tion and realization of inner peace.We owe him a profound debt ofgratitude for his heartfulness - adebt I am only too proud to owe toa man whose wise and sympatheticpresence we miss so much. May

God rest his dear, departed soul.

Pictured opposite: Dr Rowan Williams, The Archbishopof Canterbury; Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks; DrMohammed Sherif; and HRH Princess Badiya El Hassanof Jordan.

This memorial was organised by the World Islamic CallSociety, the Muslim College and an organising committeechaired by Fuad Nahdi. Other guests included HomeSecretary Charles Clarke, Prof Fawzi Elzefzaf of Al-AzharUniversity and the Muftis of Australia and Nigeria.

Have you noticed that

the more we tear down

the beauty around us

which has sustained

people’s souls for

generations, the uglier

our souls become; the less

courteous and considerate

our surroundings are, the

less courteous and

considerate we are to one

another; the more the ego

predominates in

everything, the more

offensive we become to

Nature herself, and then

literally nothing is

allowed to be sacred?

My Dear brothers and sisters, relatives, friends, stu-dents and supporters throughout the world: As-Salamu `Alaykum Wa Rahmatullah Wa Barakatuh.

“Indeed, we belong to Allah, and to Him we must surelyreturn!”

With grief and sorrow, I share with you the tragic loss ofmy beloved wife, my companion, and the love of my heart Al-Hajjah Farizah Aal Rabbat, known as Umm Ibrahim,Rahimaha Allah, who is also the mother of my three children(Aisha, Ibrahim and Ismael).

Allah chose her out of this world to enter al-Jannah on thevery birthday of His Beloved Prophet (sallalahu ‘alayhi wasal-lam) through the door of martyrs. I do not object to His Will:we belong to Him and our return is to Him; whatever Hetakes is undoubtedly His, and whatever He gives is undoubt-edly His.

She left this world on Monday 12th of Rabi’ Al-Awwal,1427 (April 10th 2006), around 5:00 pm in a car accidentwhile she was driving from our home outside Damascustoward the city to visit her family and attend a mawlid. At thesame time, I was leading a mawlid feast in the city. She diedat 37 years of age, and was approximately five months preg-nant with a baby boy who also died. Just a few hours beforethe accident we had agreed to name him Shareef.

With her in the car, she had our three children, Aisha,Ibrahim and Ismael who are 8, 6, and 5 years old respective-ly; and her maid Nour. By the Bounty of the Most Generous,they survived the accident but were all injured at various lev-els. They are still in hospital being treated. Please continue tomake du’aa for them.

On Sunday night, (the night of 12th of Rabi’ Al-Awwal),we had a blessed mawlid gathering in our home. Monday, theday she died, we had brunch together with the kids and I toldher I wanted to take her and the kids in August to al-Madinaal-Munawwara, where she can deliver her baby. She wasextremely happy and took my word that I will name the boyShareef.

I left home at 1:30 pm on Monday for a dars and amawlid in the city. At 5:15 pm I received the news of the acci-dent and immediately headed to the hospital, only to find outthat she had given her last breaths. Later on, the rescuers toldus that when they reached her she was still alive moving her

REMEMBERING

Al-Hajjah Farizah Rabbat Umm Ibrahim Al-Yaqoubi Al-HasaniBy Shaykh Muhammad Al-Yaqoubi Al-Hasani

lips (presumably with shahada, and dhikr) but could notmake it to the hospital.

As an English teacher, Umm Ibrahim worked in a neigh-boring school teaching the first three grades. She has had thisjob for the past three years and always considered it animportant mission; it fulfilled her ambitions. She liked toimprove herself through reading and training, through whichshe acquired many skills in recent years, including NLP andHomeopathy. She loved social activities and had a strong per-sonality. She was an excellent housewife and a great cook.

But most of all, what distinguished Umm Ibrahim, andthe reason for which I had chosen her as a wife, was her right-eousness, persistence in worship, and her sincerity to the deen.For instance, in the last few months of her life, she used topray 100 rak’as of salah everyday. She recited Surat al-Baqaraeveryday, oftentimes with Surat al-An’am. Qiyamullayl deco-rated her nights, and was something she would hardly miss.

She always had new ideas to promote da’wah and attractpeople to the true way of Islam. She devoted her life to herfamily and to students of sacred knowledge. After prayer andrecitation of al-Qur’an, nothing was dearer to her than serv-ing the students, cooking for them, and taking care of theirneeds.

The night before she died, she prepared food for myguests as we were having a feast in our home on the occasionof 12th of Rabi’ Al-Awwal, the anniversary of the Birth of theBeloved of Allah. Six days earlier, on Tuesday 6th Rabi’ Al-Awwal, she cooked for 150 guests, insisting she did not wantto order the food. She used to prepare the most delicious foodat our weekly dhikr session for 50 people. One week beforeshe died, she said, when I was trying to convince her to orderfood, “I find cooking for the students light and easy, and Idon’t want to be deprived from its rewards. I know what theylike, and the food brought from the market is fatty for them".Such was her amazing dedication.

Moreover, she liked jabrul Khawatir, so at Eid times, sheused to prepare bags full of sweets and gifts to hand over tokids in poor neighborhoods. She used to make Eid parties forthe foreign students and organise special programs for theirchildren.

Some 3000 people attended her funeral, which took placeon Tuesday after Zuhr prayer at Jami’ al-Badr in Damascus.

‘Grief and sorrow upon the loss of my heart’

44 | Q-NEWS

MEMORIAL

Q-NEWS | 45

MEMORIAL

Three years ago, upon a visit toBab al-Saghir cemetery, wheremy ancestors are buried, she saidto me, “When I die, bury me inthe graves of your family, I wantto be with Ahlul Bait.”

By the Grace of Allah, shewas buried bearing a grandson ofthe Beloved Messenger of Allah,in the grave of my mother, Al-Sayyida Ameenah Mansoor al-Jaza’irly al-Hasani, who passedaway also in the month of Aprilin 1996, just a few months beforemyself and Umm Ibrahim gotmarried. Umm Ibrahim had metmy mother one week before mymother died. Her grave is only afew meters away from the daugh-ter of Imam al-Husain, SayyidahFatima al-Sughra.

I am happy with her now,and I was happy with her beforeshe died, as she was happy withme. In the past few weeks beforeshe died, she told her mother anda few friends over the phone,even the morning of her death,how happy she was in her mar-riage. According to a Propheticstatement when a woman dieswhile her husband is happy withher she will enter al-Jannah. Ihave seen several signs that shewill be in al-Jannah. Obviously,the servants of the Ahlul Bayt willbe in al-Jannah, let alone thewives or mothers of Ahlul Bayt.

Many outstanding personali-ties and scholars spoke during thethree-day sessions of condolencesheld on her behalf. They includ-ed: Sayyif al-Fatih al-Kittani,Shaykh Dr. Sa’id Ramadan al-Bouti; Shaykh Krayyim Rajih,Shaykh Dr. Abdullatif Farfoor,Shaykh Abdullah Rabih, ShaykhAbdul Aziz al-Khateeb, ShaykhAbul Hasan al-Kurdi, Shaykh Ahmad Ramadan, ShaykhNa’im al-'Araqsoosi, Shaykh Sariyah al-Rifa’i, and many oth-ers.

Last but not least, I would like to offer my deepest thanksand gratitude to all the scholars, the friends, the students,male and female, in Syria and throughout the world, whosupported me and my children and Umm Ibrahim’s family inthis difficult time in every form. Nothing is enough to thankthe many thousands of brothers and sisters in Damascus andaround the globe who stood with us during this trial.

I beg you to continue your du’aa for the full recovery of

the children. Make du`aa espe-cially that Allah help the threechildren cope with the loss oftheir mother, and that the shock,when they learn the news, mayeasily be absorbed. Make du’aafor her parents, as the tragic lossis indeed difficult for them. Andplease do continue to make spe-cial du`aa for Umm Ibrahim thatAllah grant her Mercy andForgiveness and reward her withJannatul Firdaws.

I end with the followingdreams. A Syrian sister sawUmm Ibrahim coming into aroom, filled with light. UmmIbrahim said to her, “Don’tworry about me; I am in the beststate". A brother by the nameZahir saw her calling Imam AbulHasan al-Shadhiliy, which showsthe blessings in the attachment toour great shadhili silsila, as shewas part of it, took tariqa over ayear ago. Another sister saw onthe same morning she died, thata righteous woman passed awayin Damascus, during the day, shelearned of the death of UmmIbrahim.

Yes, indeed Umm Ibrahim didnot survive the accident but infact she did survive in my heartand I am sure she will survive inthe hearts of those who love her.

May Allah grant her the high-est ranks in al-Jannah and thecompany of my Grandfather, ourMaster, the best of creation, theBeloved Messenger of Allah,Salla Allahu ‘alayhi wasallam.May Allah give her her book inher right hand and let her enterJannah without reckoning. MayHe make her grave a garden fromthe Gardens of Paradise. MayAllah reward all brothers and sis-

ters, and shaykhs and ‘Ulama, and everyone who made Du’afor her and for me and for the children in the best way. MayAllah protect them and their families, their parents and theirchildren and allow us all to meet in Jannatul Firdaws in thecompany of the Elect and the Beloved of Allah, RasulullahSalla Allahu ‘alayhi wasallam.

Allahumma Ameen.

The unworthy servant of the people of Allah,Muhammad.

‘I would like to offer my deepest

thanks and gratitude to all the

scholars, the friends, the

students, male and female, in

Syria and throughout the world,

who supported me and my

children and Umm Ibrahim’s

family in this difficult time.

Nothing is enough to thank the

many thousands of brothers and

sisters in Damascus and around

the globe who stood with us

during this trial.’

46 | Q-NEWS

As the camera tracks across a set of sandy footprintson a glittering night-blue shoreline, a woman’s voicebegins, “about four million years ago our distant

ancestors did something amazing… It is the moment, formany, that we made the leap from ape to man” If you did-n’t know the title of this BBC commissioned documentaryyou would be forgiven for assuming it was another flashyreconstruction of how we supposedly used to be, usinghairy extras, digital enhancement and lingering shots ofbacklit fossil remains. But this is no reconstruction.“Imagine”, continues the woman, “that there are humanbeings who never made this leap". The next shot is theastonishing sight of a fully-grown woman walking on allfours; back arched, arms and legs extended, feet and handssplayed.

This is one of the six disabled children of Regit Ulas, ahumble farmer eking out a living from the land. His wifehad nineteen children in all. One died, twelve others sur-vived to be perfectly healthy adults. The film, screened onBBC2 last month, is entitled The Family That Walks On AllFours. It immediately, and deliberately, one suspects, con-jures an image of a family unit living like apes. So begins apiece of sensationalist documentary filmmaking. It con-cludes that four of the six brain damaged adults, who havebeen intermittently prodded, poked, assessed and scanned,cannot walk upright for lack of physiotherapy and aZimmer frame.

Two of the six adults are able to walk unaided. From aPediatric therapist’s perspective, their clumsy uncoordinatedgait looks like a disorder called Ataxia, although they donot mention this in the film. Indeed, all these adults havedamage to the cerebellum, a part of the brain involved inmaintaining balance and strongly associated with Ataxia.The fact that Mr Ulas is closely related to his wife makes itmore likely that their children have a genetic disorder. Itappears to have an ataxic component. There are many chil-dren and adults living amongst us with inherited forms ofAtaxia, for example, the single gene disorder AtaxiaTelangiectasia. There are even a few cases of developmentaldisabilities of unknown genetic origin. But here is the rub ofit. No one would ever dare suggest that such people are

genetic throwbacks or the missing link between ape andman, let alone make a documentary film about their ape-like walk. It would never pass the ethics committee. One isleft asking whether such a voyeuristic film was able to bemade because the family is poor and from a remote regionof the world.

This would be contentious enough if it was not for thefact that this particular family is Kurdish and living near thesouthern border of Turkey with Syria. Here, Islam is theweft and warp that binds people’s lives. It would be easy tojump into the Adam and Eve versus Evolution debate theproducers raise with striking graphics and claps of thunder.Indeed, teaching Darwin is a serious issue and not only inTurkey, as they rightly point out. What is perhaps moreinteresting is the contrast between the family and the scien-tists examining them. For you get a striking and paradoxi-cal sense that faith and limited means nurture far greaterhumility, mutual respect and self-acceptance than scienceand prosperity.

Scientists can be particularly competitive and cantan-kerous. Asked to comment about “truth”, they usually talkabout objective or observable empirical data. But they cansometimes ignore the glaringly obvious when it does notaccord with their worldview. In 1925, for example, a youngfemale astronomer, Cecilia Payne, submitted her PhD papershowing that the sun was predominantly composed ofhydrogen and not iron. But her Harvard supervisor rejectedthe evidence on the grounds that it was simply not possible.The sun must be composed of a similar proportion of ele-ments to the earth. He made her re-write her paper todeclare that what she observed was “almost certainly notreal". She was later spectacularly vindicated. One of the sci-entists on this documentary, Esteban Sarmiento, in alludingto the biblical story of creation, says, “We often accept sto-ries that allow us to view ourselves in a positive light". Yet,throughout the programme it is shown that scientists arehypothesising about these disabled individuals in print with-out substantive evidence to support their claims. They areworking on it, they say, and it may take months or years toachieve a breakthrough.

Teams of them from England, Germany and Turkey and

AAddaamm GGoorreenn finds a new documentary examining a family ofKurdish Muslim “quadrupeds” a disturbing attempt to legitimisescientific voyeurism. Yet confronted with poking, prodding and ego-driven researchers, he finds a family struggling against the odds heldtogether by love, faith and a forgiving way of life.

The Family ThatWalks On All Fours

REVIEW

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be done for them? It turns out that some parallel bars and aZimmer frame can transform their lives. It is potentiallypossible that they will all walk upright. When Mr Ulas dis-covers this he is clearly overwhelmed with gratitude.

Scientific progress provides the kind of prosperity,longevity and comfort that we enjoy whilst watching theplight of this family from our living room sofas. But it doesnot and cannot eradicate suffering. In my work as a chil-dren’s therapist I see a good deal of it. Parents love theirchildren just as this Kurdish family does, and would do any-thing to help them. But they may still be left with theprospect of a child who will never be able to walk or writeor get a job or have a family. This is something that manyparents find painfully difficult to accept. Some never do.

Our prosperous secular society seems to foster an expec-tation of life with limited suffering and bright prospects.There is little or no room for the Islamic concept of maktubor “what is written". The downside is an increased intoler-ance to adversity. As Professor Frank Furedi, of theUniversity of Kent, makes clear in his book, ParanoidParenting, this difficulty coping with bad stuff is not limit-ed to things that actually happen to us like the death of aloved one or the birth of a severely disabled child. It is also,he says, leading to a morbid fear of imagined disasters thatcould befall us at any moment, and which we must guardagainst with diligence in daily life. He asserts that parentsare much more anxious than they used to be. Paradoxically,despite unprecedented levels of health care, personal choiceand wealth, they feel more out of control.

As the makers of this documentary recognise, to theircredit, Regit Ulas and his children possess something thatthe scientists do not: a faith that teaches acceptance. Whilstthere have been leaps in technological progress to alleviateand even eradicate certain disabilities, suffering continues tobe an integral part of the human experience. And if our onlycouncil is Jean-Paul Sartre’ bleak existentialist philosophyor Dylan Thomas’ bitter exhortation to “Rage, rage againstthe dying of the light”, then we may want to turn to MrUlas for an example of a more forgiving way of living.

This film is a production by Passionate Productions.

the US examine the blood, brain scans, gait, neurologicalresponses, speech and hand function of Mr Ulas’s children.What comes across is a kind of avarice, a drive to discoverand possess a new truth. They want to be the first in theirfield and their hubris is staggering. One of them speculatesirresponsibly about a ‘super-balance’ gene, another namesthe syndrome he supposes he’s discovered after himself anda third is convinced he has found, in these people, a reces-sive trait for human quadrupedality.

It comes as no surprise to find one academic, ProfessorNicholas Humphrey of the London School of Economics,describing a fellow scientist’s study as ‘trivial’. It gets worse.Four zealous paleo-anthropologists are pictured groupedaround a TV screen, analysing footage of the disabledadults as if they were lab specimens. They sneer at eachother’s views and engage in petty squabbles. One of thesescientists, William Harcourt-Smith of the AmericanMuseum of Natural History, is encouraged to admit that, ofcourse, he would like to pick over the skeletons of theKurdish Quadrupeds, slickly adding “but that’s just not okethically".

The Gollum-like pawing of these respected academics,as they look for what one of them calls ‘the glittering prize’,could not contrast more starkly with the humble ways ofMr Ulas and his children. At no point in the documentarydoes he ask why this has happened to his family. For him, itis the will of Allah and the way in which he is tested. All hewishes for, he says, is that his children are cared for once heleaves this world. And he is sure this will be the case sincehe and his wife have done good deeds in this life. For herpart, his wife describes her children as the most intimatepart of her. “They are like my insides” the Turkish psychol-ogist, Fefne, falteringly translates. Whilst their village com-munity has partly ostracized them, they continue to treateach other with respect and acceptance, as they do the sci-entists and the film crews despite the risk that this mightinfuriate the locals or the authorities. With the relentlesstesting and continued hypothesising, the Turkish psycholo-gist’s frustration boils over. She tells the eminent ProfessorHumphrey that she could not care less about how these peo-ple came to be like this. The important question is what can

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its drawbacks, thus the Sydney OperaHouse has a curious angular dispositionthat stonemasons can only dream of imitat-ing. The very nature of the material has cre-ated the conditions for its vast use.

Hayes asks us to ponder into the hap-hazard development of one of the mostbenign condiments of modern infrastruc-ture, the paved road. The earliest attemptsbegan by merely dropping walls on theirsides, the results were too bumpy. Havingbricks titled on their sides (cobbled streets),still made little difference. FrenchmanPierre-Marie-Jerome Tresaguet and Englishengineer Thomas Telford both suggestedlaying a foundation of set stone blocks andhave finer pebbles for a smooth surface.However, not until John Loudon McAdamdid the modern form of road surface appear.Stone, broken into fine segments, isextremely durable when laid down on a nat-ural road-bed. It should be noted that asvisionary an engineer McAdam was, anethicist he was not: his road-crews routine-ly included poorly paid women and childrento hammer stone into this fine substance.This original ‘McAdam’ had no adhesive toset it into place; however its modern ances-tor (asphalt) binds stone with bitumen - thetarry residue of petroleum refining.

As edifying as the lessons in modernengineering techniques may be, the widerimport of Hayes’ work may at closer exam-ination prove its importance to the themesthat run through Islamic aesthetics. Forexample, within Islamic art there has not

Utility makes purity - thus intonedImmanuel Kant arguably layingdown the standard for aesthetic

judgment that has lasted for almost threehundred years. The use-value of an object,according to Kant, is in direct correlation tothe beauty and charm it delivers to its audi-ence. Whether or not you have a proclivityto Kant’s position, most find it hard to denythat beauty confronts us everywhere and itsdecorous allure is one that people find hardto shun. For example, despite Blake’s claimsof abhorrence in industrialised England hefinds elsewhere it to be a place of “pleasantponderous". Ruskin who wrote of the“black clouds” that stork the effervescentskies, spoke well of the potentials of mod-ern industry. Orwell cogently exclaims the“tools” of modern society are not perni-cious per se, rather we ought to fear theintent of the hurdy few.

Today we seem to have assimilated inour judgements of what is beautiful andwhat is not. Thus, even though we may dis-cuss the individual merits of particularworks, a statue of Winston Churchill in astraightjacket for example, we nonethelessagree that the ostensible category to whichit belongs is ‘art’ even though we mayregard it as unacceptable or belligerent.Such ossified presumptions fall into the gazeof Brain Hayes, who approaches aesthetics,as Nietzsche did with philosophy, with thehammer of discontent.

When Hayes travels abroad he does notgo to the galleries, museums or highlights onthe “heritage trail”, but goes straight to thepower stations, pylons and motorways thecountry has to offer. An acquired taste with-out a doubt, yet one that alludes to the proj-ect Hayes sets out to accomplish: that ofbringing the latent forms of architecture inindustrialised societies to the consciousnesslevel of appreciation. It is a project worthyof our attention.

His latest book Infrastructure is dividedinto fifteen chapters, each dealing with aspecific element in the jigsaw of moderninfrastructure: roads, bridges, ships, planes,power plants and power girds. Hayes’ dis-cussion of concrete is particularly instruc-tive. Concrete, the engineers dream sub-stance, has all the benefits of stone without

Wielding the Hammer of DiscontentMMuujjaaddaadd ZZaammaann finds that Brian Hayes’ latest examination of the urban landscapeprovides a much-needed starting point for re-examining aesthetics and beauty in thebuilt environment. It’s something, he contends, Islamic civilisation has a lot to say about.

been a distinction between fine art and craft.Traditionally this dichotomy was not neededas the poet or carpenter both had the skill toproduce objects of sensible delight, as beau-ty was to be found from the souk to themihrab. Thus ‘art’ was never considered thea priori property of art college students oreven artists. Furthermore if we considerartistic merit, we may draw a broad general-isation between Western art as inherently‘expressive’ and ‘individual’ and Islamic artas inclining towards communal interests andas such moulding itself on the precepts oftradition and thus does not become faddishor outmoded, in the manner theseappendages can be applied to Western art.

With such reflections, what then are weto make of the lessons from Hayes’ work?One may be the complementarity of art tocivic life (a truth known in Homer’s day)and as such the objects, which protrude ourlandscape, have a logos (purpose), yet asEmerson wrote, they also tell us somethingof the purpose of those who made them.Another may be that our surroundings arethe result of experiments by humans toedify their environment.

The evolution of our infrastructure,Hayes reminds us, is often predicated by itsmotivations. Take the current debate as towhat is to happen when our oil resourcesfinally dry up. In a way we have been downthis road before. A 200-year transition tookplace from the use of whale to crude oil -whale oil being a 19th century staple forindustry and one over which wars werefought. A final, and more definitive, pointmay be that whether one enjoys this bookor refuses to traverse the benignantly of itscontent, one is left with a newfound inspi-ration for the labours of our engineers. Sothe next time you’re walking down OxfordStreet and come across unlikely individualsdiscussing the merits of ‘McAdamean’ tech-niques of pavement construction or ponder-ing over the pylons that manse the sky, youwill do well to know that ‘use’ of an objectmay still conjure reverence. Perhaps Kantwas wrong after all.

Infrastructure: A Field Guide to theIndustrial Landscape by Brian Hayes ispublished by W.W. Norton and Co.

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BOOK REVIEW

50 | Q-NEWS

Politics, particularly of the international variety, is oftenbest served on a bed of dubious generalities. Witness thespectacular affront on human rights worldwide occa-

sioned by the so-called ‘War on Terror’ - a dubious construct ifthere ever was one. Thus far we have been fed a steady dose oflukewarm political dishes likewise predicated on amorphousconcepts like ‘freedom’, ‘liberty’, ‘humanity’ and the like. Littleeffort has been put to filling out these grand concepts.

At the moment there is in circulation yet another grandioseconcept that sounds too good to be true: the ‘InternationalCommunity’. We don’t exactly know who or what this com-munity is, but apparently this community is quite annoyedwith the government of Iran for doing what other govern-ments in other parts of the world have been doing all along:developing the know-how and technological base for thedevelopment of nuclear energy as well as nuclear weapons.

In this respect Iran is merely the latest member of a steadi-ly growing club of nations that includes the United States ofAmerica, Britain, France, Russia, China, India, Pakistan andIsrael (who tried laughably to conceal its membership for fearof courting jealousy from its neighbours).

Nonetheless it would appear that the entry of Iran into theglobal nuclear club has incurred the wrath of the‘International Community’. The current occupant of theWhite House seems to have intimate knowledge and relationswith this ‘international community’ as he keeps referring to itin his speeches and diatribes against intransigent Iran. The‘International Community’, the President informs us, is deeplyworried about Iran’s nuclear capability. Then came the warn-ing that the ‘International Community’ would not rest till thequestion of Iran’s nuclear status is “satisfactorily” resolved.The ‘International Community’ has now declared that Iran’snuclear programme will not be tolerated and that decisivesteps will be taken to ensure that Iran does not go fullynuclear.

Where does this near-mythical ‘international community’reside? One wonders how come President Bush alone seems soclose to this shadowy community and knows so much aboutits secrets. Could President Bush actually be a secret memberof this ‘International Community’ himself? Is such member-ship constitutionally sanctioned? Could, God forbid, the

‘International Community’ actually be hiding in a cupboard inhis office?

If so, then this mysterious community has to be rathersmall indeed. Analysts and researchers have been looking forthis fabulous international community for some time now.Apparently it is not found in the UN General Assembly, forthus far the members of the UN have not spoken with a uni-lateral voice on the issue of Iran and her acquisition of nucleararms and technology. At international forums the Communityhas been talked about but never seen.

As time wears on, it has become evident that the‘International Community’ that President Bush keeps talkingabout is made up… of himself, his aides and allies and a hand-ful of subservient middling (or is that meddling) Europeanstates. One can easily point out that it hardly amounts to any-thing international at all (they could have at least paid lip serv-ice to political correctness and invite at least one petty Africanor Asian state to join in the gang - just for optics).

So it would appear that all the rhetorical pyrotechnicsabout the concern and efforts of the ‘InternationalCommunity’ boils down to the unilateral efforts and ambi-tions of a sole superpower with a handful of other willingcrony states in tow. Like the other grand notions and cloudyideas that have been bartered by the US of late, it wouldappear as little more than a guise for American unilateralismthinly dressed in rainbow colours to lend it an air of diversity.

The rest of the real world on the other hand - meaning ofthe planet that doesn’t figure prominently on Bush’s mentalmap - seems to be more ambivalent about the Iranian nuclearprogramme. Few Asian, African, Arab or Latin Americancountries have shown any discomfort at Iran’s new status.

Listening to the rhetoric of the ‘international community’that bears the heavy stamp of America and Americanism, onecannot help but make the same comparison with the title ofthe American sports tournament dubbed ‘the World Series’.The title sounds typically American and pretentious enough,with its claim to global significance and import. But someoneought to remind the Americans that when they play out their‘World Series’ they are in fact playing only with themselves. Itmakes talks with the “International Community” look like acase of deja vu all over again.

Everyone’s talking about it. It counts amongst its

closest confidantes many world leaders, including

George W Bush and Tony Blair. It’s obviously

authoritative, pithy and clairvoyant - it never

appears but is always eager for others to mention it.

FFaarriisshh NNoooorr puts on his detective cap and searches

for the mysterious ‘International Community’.

What International Community?

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