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No space for extremism Na'eem Jeenah A series of bomb blasts in London, and we heard the now-familiar call. ‘Where are the moderate Muslims?’ asked Tony Blair. ‘This was not an isolated criminal act,’ Blair told his parliamentary colleagues. ‘It is an extreme and evil ideology whose roots lie in a perverted and poisonous misinterpretation of Islam.’ I might have some sympathy with this view (and it irritates me to admit that). But it is hugely problematic that non-Muslim politicians have suddenly placed themselves in the position to decide what is ‘Islamic’ and what isn’t; what is a correct interpretation of Islam and what is a ‘perverted and poisonous’ one. Blair promptly met with British Muslim leaders to enlist their support against ‘the extremists’ and to convince them that his war in Iraq had nothing to do with the bombings. (The prime minister seems out-of-touch with his citizens, two-thirds of whom believe there was a link between the invasion of Iraq and the blasts.) The delegation was handpicked – so that only ‘moderates’ would be present. I have a strong aversion to the term ‘moderate’. Whenever it is used – especially in reference to Muslims, I remember P.W. Botha, who declared in a speech attacking the anti-apartheid movement – including Muslims – that the majority of South Africa’s Muslims were ‘law-abiding’ and ‘moderate’. He was referring to those who supported the sham tricameral parliament, to the ‘ulamā that insisted Islam had nothing to do with politics and pronounced Muslims in the struggle as kufaar and to those rich Muslims who financially supported the NP. In short, he was talking about Muslims who knew their place in apartheid’s hierarchy and were keen to protect it. So I would prefer not be lumped in with the ‘moderate Muslims’ – if I was ever given the opportunity to join that club. But it is the arrogance that irks me: that powerful people believe they can decide what Islam is because their definition serves their political interests. Remember George Bush visiting a masjid and stating that not all Muslims were terrorists? I would rather be thought of as a terrorist by the likes of Bush and Blair. The flip side of this that irks me is that all Muslims automatically have the responsibility, whenever a bomb goes off, to issue the ritual condemnation and to declare Islam as a ‘peaceful religion’. Some Muslims have no opinion on anything except to condemn terrorism and remind people that Islam is ‘peaceful’. But what is equally – maybe more – disconcerting is that we Muslims create the space for Bush, Blair, their intelligence agencies and their advisors, to make such declarations. We create the space because we are unwilling to challenge the extremism that does exist within the community. Hence, Bush and Blair become our surrogates. Sometimes it is because we are intimidated; more often it is because we believe in some strange notion of Muslim solidarity where we protect people doing dangerous things in the name of Islam. (Interestingly, we are willing to attack and kill Muslims because they recite the salami or because they sit in the mosque for their ‘kitab reading’.) In our community, extremism (I use the word with much hesitation) has many shades and forms. It starts with the seemingly not-very-harmful declaration that Muslims who get involved in politics or who socialise with non-Muslims or men who don’t cover their heads in salah or women who don’t wear scarves are ‘like the kuffaar’ (or, in some cases, ‘are kuffaar’). It can end with the murder of Muslims and non-Muslims who don’t support a particular ideological opinion or strategy. In between, you have the cases of women who are gang-raped or forced to marry their rapists as punishment. We should remember how musallies, female and male, were manhandled a few years ago outside the Claremont Main Rd Mosque because they attended a mosque where a woman had delivered a lecture. What of Muslims whose houses had been bombed and who lived with the threat of death because they dared to hold different opinions. (I’m talking about South Africa, not Iraq.) I’m not saying we should be impervious to the suffering of Muslims in Palestine or Kashmir or to the hell that is Iraq or to the destructive role of imperialism in the world. I am saying we have a responsibility as Muslims to live Islam as a deen of justice, balance and – dare I say it – moderation. That we have a responsibility to, within our communities, stamp out the ideologies that promote an Islam of intolerance, violence, murder and which require the indiscriminate killing of innocent people. Islamic intellectual history is a celebration of diversity and flexibility. Those who today peddle the idea that theirs is the only ‘correct Islam’ and that anyone who deviates from this ‘authentic’ Islam is destined to hell are not following our tradition. They distort the Qur’ān and sunnah for their violent, misogynistic, exclusivist ideologies and build a laager that gets smaller and smaller until they are the only Muslims. This exclusivist Islam was not the Islam of the Prophet (s) or his companions. Theirs was not an Islam of rigidity, of murdering anyone who didn’t agree with them, of waging war on women and children to make a political point. Muhammad (s) was not a pacifist. He ‘stood out firmly for justice’. He fought against ‘tumult and oppression until justice prevailed’. But he did not teach us to hate other humans. He did not teach us to place bombs in subways, deliberately targeting innocent people. The inclusive nature of Islam must be realised. Extremism, in all forms, in the Muslim community must be opposed. Islamic thought does need to be reformed and made more relevant for the times in which we live. If we don’t do it, the Bushs and Blairs of the world are quite happy to step in, with their armies and technologies and hatred, to create a ‘moderate’ Islam in their image – destroying any vestige of Islamic civilisation in the process.
July
2005
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