A Textbook Case of Intolerance
Changing the world one schoolbook at a time.
By Anne Applebaum
Monday, July 21, 2008

Because they are so clearly designed for the convenience of large testing companies, I had always assumed that multiple-choice tests, the bane of any fourth grader’s existence, were a quintessentially American phenomenon. But apparently I was wrong. According to a report put out by the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom last week, it seems that Saudi Arabians find them useful, too. Here, for example, is a multiple-choice question that appears in a recent edition of a Saudi fourth-grade textbook, Monotheism and Jurisprudence, in a section that attempts to teach children to distinguish “true” from “false” belief in god:

Q. Is belief true in the following instances:
a) A man prays but hates those who are virtuous.
b) A man professes that there is no deity other than God but loves the unbelievers.
c) A man worships God alone, loves the believers, and hates the unbelievers.

The correct answer, of course, is c).

According to the Wahhabi imams who wrote this textbook, it isn’t enough just to worship god or just to love other believers—it is important to hate unbelievers as well. By the same token, b) is also wrong. Even a man who worships god cannot be said to have “true belief” if he loves unbelievers.

“Unbelievers,” in this context, are Christians and Jews. In fact, any child who sticks around in Saudi schools until ninth grade will eventually be taught that “Jews and Christians are enemies of believers.” They will also be taught that Jews conspire to “gain sole control of the world,” that the Christian crusades never ended, and that on Judgment Day “the rocks or the trees” will call out to Muslims to kill Jews.

These passages, it should be noted, are from new, “revised” Saudi textbooks. Following a similar analysis of earlier versions of these same textbooks in 2006, American diplomats immediately approached their Saudi counterparts about the more disturbing passages, and the Saudis agreed to conduct a “comprehensive revision … to weed out disparaging remarks towards religious groups.”

The promised revision—hailed, at the time, as a great diplomatic success—was supposed to be finished by the beginning of the 2008-09 school year and was accompanied by a Saudi PR campaign. Among other things, the Saudis sponsored an interfaith dialogue last week, one that all participants hailed as a great breakthrough—despite the fact that the actual meetings took place in Spain as it would be too embarrassing for Saudi Arabia to host Christian and Jewish religious leaders on its own soil. But although the beginning of the 2008-09 school year is nearly upon us, the only textbook revisions have been superficial, and the most disturbing part of the message—that faithful Muslims should hate Jews and Christians—remains.

Normally, the contents of another country’s textbooks would be of no interest to us. Indeed, I’ve no doubt that there are plenty of U.S. textbooks that contain insane, incorrect, or otherwise unacceptable information. Saudi school textbooks are a special case, however. They are written and produced by the Saudi government and subsequently distributed, free of cost, to Saudi-sponsored schools as far afield as Lagos, Nigeria, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. Americans are not the only ones who worry about their influence. In Britain, a small political storm began last year when British mosques were found to be distributing Saudi books that called on Muslims to kill all apostates.

Still, even if U.S. diplomacy is a legitimate response to this peculiarly insidious form of propaganda, it clearly isn’t a sufficient response. Far more significant, and surely more effective, would be a unified response from the rest of the world’s Muslims, the vast majority of whom do not share Saudi views and do, occasionally, say so. The Hudson Insitute report cites a few of them, outside as well as inside Saudi Arabia. It would be useful, for us but especially for them, if they would say so more often and more loudly.

Of course, we are not a Muslim nation, and Americans cannot, by themselves, orchestrate a meaningful Muslim response to Saudi extremism. But we do have a large Muslim population, we do have friends in the moderate Muslim world, and we do have some money, much of which is wasted, to spend on public diplomacy. We also have two presidential candidates who are arguing hard this week about the best ways to combat terrorism, the best way to deploy guns and aid, the best uses of American military power.

Here is a novel idea for both of them: Make sure that children in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in Islamic schools all around the world have decent fourth-grade textbooks. It might save a lot of trouble later on.

Anne Applebaum is a Washington Post and Slate columnist. Her most recent book is Gulag: A History.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2195684/

An excellent documentary…quite emotional really. SubhanAllah!

This is such an interesting documentary that I think everyone should watch. It’s an insider view of a fanatical Mosque and Islamic extremism in the UK. Situations like such can also be found in these parts (Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia), although mainly in private organisations or homes, rather than Mosques. Check it out!

SimplyIslam.sg is pleased to announce a series of lectures and programs with SHAYKH KHALIL MOORE, from 27 June to 5 July 2008.

Shaykh Khalil Moore embraced Islam at the age of 19, and is an upcoming Islamic scholar, having spent many years travelling to the Muslim world in search of sacred knowledge, learning the religion in the hands of professors and shaykhs in Madinah, Mauritania, Morocco, Emirates, Egypt and Yemen.  He studied the Maliki and Shafi’i jurisprudence (fiqh), Arabic language and has translated and edited several classical and contemporary Islamic books. Among his teachers are great scholars like Habib Umar Bin Hafiz.  Read his profile - Khalil Moore Profile or visit his website.

The following is the complete schedule of programs in Singapore or download [Shaykh Khalil Moore Singapore Programs].

WORKSHOP (by registration)
THE SPIRITUAL ASPIRANT - FOUNDATIONS FOR THE SEEKER
Dates: 30 June/1 July/2 July 2008
Time: 8 pm to 10 pm (3 nights)
Fee: $50 per person
Venue: Madrasah Aljunied Al-Islamiah (30 Victoria Lane)
[CLICK HERE] TO REGISTER FOR THE WORKSHOP
The heart is the centerpiece of the servant’s relationship with his or her Creator.  If it is sound, the relationship is sound.  If it is corrupt, the relationship is corrupt. Allah (SWT) says in the Qur’an: “Successful indeed is he who purifies it.  And completely ruined is he who defiles it.”  In this workshop series we will examine the importance of the life of the heart; the means by which we can attain true spiritual rectitude; some of the key diseases that obstruct our path and how to begin to remove them; and what living the life of a spiritual aspirant on the path to the Hereafter entails.

FILM SCREENING (by registration)
AL-GHAZALI - THE ALCHEMIST OF HAPPINESS
Commentaries by Shaykh Khalil Moore
Date: Saturday 28 June 2008
Time: 8 pm
Fee: $10 per person
Venue: Madrasah Aljunied Al-Islamiah (30 Victoria Lane)
[CLICK HERE] TO REGISTER FOR THE SCREENING

LECTURES (All are Welcome. No registration required.)
Friday 27 June 2008
Event: In-House Lecture
Topic: Journey of a Seeker
Time: 8 pm
Venue: Darul Arqam Singapore (32 Onan Road, The Galaxy)

Sunday 29 June 2008
Event: Maulid & Lectures
Topic: Seeking Closeness to Allah (swt) & His Messenger (saw)
Time: 11 am - 1 pm
Venue: Masjid Al-Istighfar (2 Pasir Ris Walk)

Wednesday 2 July 2008
Event: Pre-Prayers Talk
Topic: The Place of Ihsan
Time: 12.30 pm
Venue: Masjid Hj Muhammad Salleh (Maqam Habib Nuh, Palmer Road)

Thursday 3 July 2008
Event: Ratib & Lecture
Topic: The Remembrance of Allah
Time: 7 pm
Venue: Masjid Ba’alwie (2 Lewis Road)

Friday 4 July 2008
Event: Pre-Prayers Talk
Topic: Awakening the Heart
Time: 12.30 pm
Venue: Masjid Sultan (3 Muscat Street)

Friday 4 July 2008
Event: Public Lecture
Topic: A Rose in the Desert - Prophet Muhammad
Time: 8 pm
Venue: Singapore Post Auditorium (Eunos Road, Singapore Post Centre)

Saturday 5 July 2008
Event: Haul Habib Esa Al-Haddad
Topic: Ode to the Prophet (saw)
Time: 4.30 pm to 8.30 pm
Venue: Masjid Khalid (130 Joo Chiat Road)

Download the complete schedule of programs - Shaykh Khalil Moore Singapore Programs.

SimplyIslam is organising a special workshop conducted by Shaykh Khalil Moore from USA. Details are as follows:

Workshop
THE SPIRITUAL ASPIRANT - FOUNDATIONS FOR THE SEEKER
Dates: 30 June/1 July/2 July 2008
Time: 8 pm to 10 pm (3 nights)
Fee: $50 per person
Venue: Madrasah Aljunied Al-Islamiah (30 Victoria Lane)
[CLICK HERE] TO REGISTER FOR THE WORKSHOP

The heart is the centerpiece of the servant’s relationship with his or her Creator.  If it is sound, the relationship is sound.  If it is corrupt, the relationship is corrupt. Allah (SWT) says in the Qur’an: “Successful indeed is he who purifies it.  And completely ruined is he who defiles it.”  In this workshop series we will examine the importance of the life of the heart; the means by which we can attain true spiritual rectitude; some of the key diseases that obstruct our path and how to begin to remove them; and what living the life of a spiritual aspirant on the path to the Hereafter entails.

SimplyIslam is pleased to organise a screening of the popular film cum documentary, Al-Ghazali - The Alchemist of Happiness.  Commentaries on the great Imam al-Ghazali will be provided by Shaykh Khalil Moore from USA. Details are:

AL-GHAZALI - THE ALCHEMIST OF HAPPINESS
Commentaries by Shaykh Khalil Moore
Date: Saturday 28 June 2008
Time: 8 pm
Fee: $10 per person
Venue: Madrasah Aljunied Al-Islamiah (30 Victoria Lane)
[CLICK HERE] TO REGISTER FOR THE SCREENING

Yep, that’s right. Surprise, surprise, the Johor Religious Department (Jabatan Agama Johor) is organising a Sufi Seminar to discuss 4 key tariqahs or Sufi order on Thursday 24 April 2008.  The tariqahs that will be discussed are: Alawiah, Ahmadiah, Naqshbandiah & Qadiriah.  At night, they are organising a public Naqshbandi dhikr gathering.  Read the details below, including very interesting seminar objectives.

JEMPUTAN SEMINAR TAREKAT KESUFIAN SIRI PERTAMA 2008 & MAJLIS ZIKIR TAREKAT NAQSHBANDIAH
Kerajaan Negeri Johor melalui Jabatan Agama Johor, Bahagian Penyelidikan akan mengadakan Seminar Tarekat Kesufian Siri Pertama 2008 dan Majlis Zikir sebagaimana ketentuan berikut:

Pendahuluan
Tarekat Kesufian merupakan satu kaedah seseorang mengenal dan mendekatkan diri kepada Allah SWT.  Melihat kepada kepentingan pendekatan tersebut ramai dikalangan masyarakat Islam melibatkan diri kepada amalan tersebut.  Khasnya dikalangan mereka yang terlibat dengan pengajian pondok dan orang yang telah mendekati usia emas.

Aliran kesufian merupakan satu kaedah mulia yang terlah diwarisi sejak zaman Rasulullah SAW tetapi disebabkan kurang diambil perhatian oleh sebahagian umat Islam, ianya dipandang negatif malahan sesat bagi mereka yang tidak berminat atau jahil dalam bidang tersebut.

Objektif Seminar

1. Memberikan maklumat dan penjelasan kepada masyarakat berhubung isu tarekat/tasawuf yang dibangkitkan oleh pihak yang anti kepada amalan tersebut seperti amalan al-Wahabi.
2. Memberikan peluang kepada peserta seminar untuk mendengar penjelasan dan berbincang dengan penceramah dan pengamal tarekat bagi mendapatkan penjelasan sebenar terhadap amalan sesuatu tarekat.
3. Menjadikan amalan tarekat sebagai kaedah meyucikan hati dan wasilah bagi mengimarahkan masjid dan surau.

Tarikh: Khamis 24 April 2008
Masa: 8.30 pagi - 4.30 petang
Tempat Seminar: Dewan Besar Pusat Islam Iskandar Johor, Johor Bahru

Tempat Zikir: Masjid Tun Hussein Onn, Larkin Johor Bahru
Masa: 7 - 10.30 malam
Pemimpin: Ustaz Dr Abdul Manam Bin Mohamad (Universiti Darul Iman Terengganu)

Aturcara
8 pagi - Pendaftaran & Sarapan Pagi
8.15 pagi - Ketibaan Dif Kehormat
8.30 pagi
- Ucapan Aluan Pengarah Jabatan Agama Johor
- Ucapan Perasmian
- Pembentangan Kertas Kerja 1

- Pembentangan Kertas Kerja 2

- Pembentangan Kertas Kerja 3

- Perbincangan
1.00 tengahari - Jamuan Tengahari / Solat Zuhur
- Pembentangan Kertas Kerja 4

- Perbincangan
4.30 petang - Bersurai

MAJLIS ZIKIR TAREKAT NAQSHBANDIAH
7 malam - Solat Maghrib
7.35 malam - Tazkirah Tasawwuf oleh Syeikh Tarekat
8.30 malam - Solat Isyak
9 malam - Majlis Zikir dipimpin oleh Syeikh Tarekat
11 malam - Jamuan Makan & Bersurai

Urus Setia (Seminar Secretariat)
Bahagian Penyelidikan
Aras 1, Blok A,
Pusat Islam Iskandar Johor
Jalan Masjid Abu Bakar
80990 Johor Bahru, Johor
Tel: 07-2282943
Fax: 07-2274144 / 07-2276041

RESPECTING THE QUR’AN
Ingrid Mattson, PhD
President, The Islamic Society of North America

Geert Wilders is a Dutch politician who broke with a mainstream national party to form his own extreme-right, anti-immigrant platform. Wilders has directed most of his hatred in recent years at Muslims. Wilders has called for the Qur’an to be banned and in the last few months has been promoting his “documentary” attacking the Qur’an. Wilders has intimated that the documentary will show a copy of the Qur’an being desecrated or destroyed.

Geert Wilders wants the Qur’an to be banned. Many Muslims want Wilders’ film to be banned. Wilders wants Muslims out of “his country” and to be denied the rights of other citizens to practice their faith. No doubt, many Dutch Muslims wish that Wilders would just go away (and Wilders has received threats of violence from some). Neither Wilders nor these Muslims will (or should) get what they want. Now what?

Many have looked to this situation only through the lense of the law. News articles have focused on threats made to Wilders’ life and the calls to ban his film. Of course, the threats are unacceptable and criminal. Wilders should be afforded the full protection of the law and those threatening violence against his person should be prosecuted.

As for the right of freedom of speech, Wilders’ film should be treated like other statements within Dutch law. The Netherlands, like most other countries, has certain restrictions on speech that is defamatory, libelous or insults a group of people based on their race or religion. The Dutch Prime Minister has publicly stated that if the film, once released, is judged to have violated the law, then his government has the duty to enforce their legislation. This treatment of Dutch Muslims as equal citizens under the law shows to the Muslim world that the Netherlands is not an enemy to Islam.

My plea is that we also need to look at this issue more broadly so we can find better ways of living together in a world in which there will always be people whose views and beliefs we find odd or even obnoxious. We should not justify or excuse extremism of any kind, whether they are racist and hateful attacks on the Muslim community or vigilante violence by Muslims against those who make such statements. What we should try to understand is why some otherwise ordinary people feel caught in the middle, and are sometimes attracted, in part, to the emotional appeals of the extremists.

In the last few decades most societies in the world have gone through enormous transitions. Many European countries have had to give up significant symbols of their national sovereignty to join the European Union and even those who did not join the EU have seen significant changes in their societies due to globalization. Even those who have benefited economically and in other ways from these changes are sometimes are troubled by the loss of traditional forms of communal solidarity and culture: local farmers’ markets, church pews filled with families on a Sunday morning, neighborhood bakeries and craftsmen; landscapes, streetscapes and the rhythm of life have changed. Perhaps each generation has a limited capacity for change, or perhaps none of us, as progressive as we claim to be, can help but romanticize the society of our youth.

An increased presence of Muslims in Europe, while part of this change, is not the cause of all these changes. Muslims did not cause a decline in attendance at European churches; they were not responsible for the fact that some churches have been turned into museums or bars. Muslims did not cause the declining birth-rate in many European societies. But the fact that Muslims are building mosques and attending religious services in higher numbers than European Christians, and that many Muslims have larger families than most European Christian families, makes Muslims easy targets of scapegoating. Europe has seen this kind of ethnic hatred before in its history. Financially-successful Jews were for many centuries viewed with jealously and resentment by some European Christians.

Muslims should not be scapegoats for the problems not of their making. At the same time, we have to be fair and acknowledge the fact that large-scale Muslim immigration to Europe has presented real challenges to these societies. Unlike in the United States, many of these immigrants arrived with little education and were often settled in large numbers in government housing that set them apart from the rest of the population. The natural process of adaptation to the new environment was stifled by many of these well-meaning policies. On the other hand, blatant and persistent discrimination experienced by many immigrants in their daily lives, combined with the availability of some extreme Islamic ideologies in the communities too often mitigated against a positive model of integration.

Most of the time, however, the problems have been cultural. This is because even when communities share the same basic values (as I believe is true of most European Christians and Muslims), the different cultural ways communities express these values can lead to misunderstandings and tensions. Our values are conveyed not only with words, but with our actions, our clothing, and our architecture.

Let’s look, for example, at the issue of respect, an important value in any society. What constitutes a respectful encounter with another? In many east-Asian societies, business cards need to be offered with two hands like a gift; to thrust a card out towards a new acquaintance is interpreted as rude. In American society, one indicates interest, respect and attention when speaking to others by looking them straight in the eye. In many Muslim cultures, such a direct gaze might be considered disrespectful, especially if one is conversing with an elder or a member of the opposite sex. I once had a student who complained to me about another student in the class: `he is so disrespectful to women,’ she said, `he never looks at me.’ The young man, an international student from a Middle Eastern country expressed dismay at her perception, `I was trying to respect her by not staring at her!”

The point is that you cannot simultaneously look someone straight in the eye and avert your gaze from them. Only one of these culturally specific means of signifying respect can be adopted in any one encounter. Most people learn to adapt, and even become bicultural. But this process takes time, and if the differences are politicized or idealized, conflict ensues.

As new communities settle in areas that previously were inhabited by a dominant cultural group, misunderstandings can multiply. I grew up in a mid-size Canadian town first settled by German, and then English and Irish immigrants. I heard many nasty comments when Portuguese families started moving to town and planted their front yards with vegetable gardens. We lived in a Platonic universe where beanstalks and carrot tops must line up in the backyard, never in the front.

These adjustments are natural, they happen every day across the world. Muslims have for centuries adopted their cultures and customs to new environments; that is why from Indonesia to Jordan to Senegal, Muslims differ in their dress, architecture, aesthetics, economies and other aspects of community life. Islamic law, in fact, requires the adoption of “good” customs as long as they do not violate fundamental religious principles.

European Muslims are slowly figuring out what is necessary and sacred in their lives and what is cultural and can be adjusted and adapted. Most Europeans understand that this can be a difficult process, and they are patient and supportive of their Muslim neighbors. Unfortunately, the voices of self-proclaimed nationalists – really, racists – like Wilders, often seem louder and more powerful because they are threatening. This is also true of the extremists in the Muslim community who preach against good relations with non-Muslims. Although they are small in number, they can affect great damage to society.

The most important thing to keep in mind in the midst of all this changes is that we can never live together peacefully with all our differences unless we are willing to respect the different choices that others make. We do not have to agree with each other or love each other, but we have to afford respect to each other. This means that we do not deliberately try to humiliate each other. Defacing or destroying symbols of each other’s most cherished beliefs violates the basic principle of respect.

Wilders’ actions are designed to hurt, offend, and even intimidate. This is why many Dutch people, including the current government, have rejected Wilders’ actions and insist that such hateful statements are not consistent with Dutch values of tolerance and communal harmony.

Many Dutch Muslims have responded positively to an assertion of Dutch citizenship based on diversity within the framework of common values and they are working with their non-Muslim neighbors to create a positive environment of mutual respect.

Still, there are some people who are just looking for a fight. No matter how many Dutch interfaith and civic groups join with their Muslim neighbors to demonstrate their solidarity and mutual respect, al-Qaeda and their ilk will point to Wilders’ film as more proof of the “Western crusade against Islam.” And no matter how many Muslims respond to Wilders’ film calmly, or not at all, Wilders will point to the violent response of some extremists as more proof that Islam is barbaric.

All I ask is that we do not blame whole communities for the actions of a few. Muslims should not blame all the Dutch people, much less “the West,” for Wilders’ hateful actions. Similarly, no one should blame all Muslims, much less Islam, for the hateful actions of some extremists.

As for me, I have vowed that if and when Wilders releases his film, the first thing I will do is pick up my Qur’an, kiss it as a symbol of the reverence it deserves from me, then sit down and read it for an hour. This is the best defense of the Qur’an.

Egypt’s Grand Mufti Counters the Tide of Islamic Extremism
By Jay Tolson (Posted March 6, 200

CAIRO—”Maybe we just need to buy CNN,” says Sheik Ali Gomaa, more than a hint of exasperation creeping into his voice. After taking more than an hour to explain to yet another western journalist why a traditional conception of sharia law—along with knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence—is the best antidote to Islamic extremism, the grand mufti of Egypt is not able to disguise his frustration. Why, he wonders, does the West still not recognize who the moderate Muslims are, much less heed what they are trying to say? Shrugging his shoulders, he answers his own question: “The western media has paid no attention.”

But it’s even worse than that, Gomaa suggests. The West is aiding the most reactionary elements, the Salafis and Wahhabis, “out of political necessity,” he says, alluding to America’s elaborate codependent relationship with the oil-rich Saudis, who finance the vast outreach apparatus of the puritanical Wahhabi establishment. “And that,” the mufti adds, “leaves behind our kind of Islam.”

Rising from the conference table after a long discussion of his views about Islam and the contemporary world, the 55-year-old Gomaa cuts a stately figure in his Al-Azhar University scholar’s garb, a dark caftan covering his white, ankle-length djellaba and a white and red cap atop his roundish head. As the grand mufti, Gomaa heads the Dar al Ifta (literally, the house of fatwas), a government agency charged with issuing nonbinding religious legal opinions on any question, large or small, that might come up in the life of a faithful Muslim. Part scholar and theologian, part jurist and administrator, he is a completely busy man—not least because his office issues some 5,000 fatwas a week, including both the official ones that he himself crafts on important issues and the more routine ones handled via phone and Internet by a dozen or so subordinate muftis. When not overseeing this operation, the sheik also appears on radio and television, participates in conferences, sometimes preaches and teaches (including at nearby Al-Ahzar University, Sunni Islam’s foremost seat of learning, where he was once a student and professor), and gives speeches abroad, mostly in the cause of promoting his broad-minded, pragmatic, and, he insists, traditionalist understanding of Islam and sharia law.

Ever since Osama bin Laden’s minions committed their murderous acts, western politicians and commentators have asked the same questions repeatedly: “Where are the voices of moderate Islam?” Yet the West—including, more specifically, the U.S. government—has done little to locate or assist such moderates. In some notable cases, such as its denial of a visa to the prominent European Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan in 2004, Washington has even gone out of its way to insult them.

Western official ineptitude aside, a more urgent question remains unanswered: What influence do moderates such as Gomaa—and particularly those coming from the traditional learned class, or ulema—have within the vast community of Muslim believers? While Gomaa himself voices concerns about the rise of Islamic extremism in the West, he marshals a raft of statistics to support his view that respect for traditionalism is large and growing in the core of the Muslim world. These include a massive growth in the demand for fatwas issued by his office, a mushrooming of secondary feeder schools for the traditionalist Al-Azhar University, and the growth of Al-Azhar itself from three colleges in 1950 to 72 today. “Can we say that the traditional ulema has lost its popularity?” he asks. (His broad confidence might be further corroborated by a new Gallup study, which found that 93 percent of Muslims from 35 different nations call themselves moderates.)

But other observers, including prominent Egyptian journalists and intellectuals, are far more skeptical about the impact of the mufti and other ulema, even within Egypt itself. They suggest that their association with corrupt authoritarian regimes lowers their standing among the people and taints their teaching. In light of such sharply differing views, the question of who will triumph in the struggle to define Islam is far from resolved.

Adapting. One thing is absolutely clear, though: Gomaa’s unshakable confidence—repeated as often by his protégés as by him—that the inherent moderation and pragmatism of traditionalist Islam make it far superior to anything proposed by puritanical Salafists or Wahhabis or utopia-minded Islamists. Through the centuries and across cultures and continents, Islam spread and flourished, they all say, precisely because the principles of sharia were applied and interpreted in light of changing reality. Apart from supporting bedrock principles of the faith as set forth in the Koran and the hadith (the authoritative accounts of the words and deeds of the Prophet), Islamic jurists sought to make the lives of Muslims easier, not more difficult, through their realistic application of religious law. As Gomaa sees it, what the best Muslim jurists have always done is to focus on the intent of sharia to foster faithfulness, dignity, intellectual growth, and other core values. Called al makased, this method of seeking to apply the law through an understanding of its purposes is at the core of Gomaa’s scholarship and jurisprudence and is being spread by his scores of students and followers.

But there have always been in Islam, as in other religions, the terrible simplifiers, the puritans who, like the 18th-century Arabian cleric Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, claim not only to streamline the faith but to return it to basic principles. Often called Salafists, such Muslims in more recent times have also presented themselves as modernizers and reformists. The more political among them, the Islamists, have additionally sought to make Islam into a political program to replace secular forms of government.

Tossing out centuries of reasoned reflection upon the meaning of sharia and discounting the importance of most schools of jurisprudence, these puritans reduce the law to selected passages from the Koran and the hadith and, as the traditionalists see it, distort the intent of sharia by taking the chaff for the wheat. “Their fast-food jurisprudence has led to great intolerance,” says Suhaib Webb, a 36-year-old American convert to Islam who came to Al-Azhar University from California precisely to learn the classical traditions of jurisprudence. “The classical discourse dealt with reality,” Webb says. “The modern discourse is utopian. Ali Gomaa is respected because he deals with reality.”

Since being appointed grand mufti by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 2003, Gomaa has demonstrated that realism in scores of rulings on matters that have profound implications for the lives of Muslims. In a country where female genital mutilation is still widely practiced in the name of religion, Gomaa declared it un-Islamic and wrong. He has ruled that Muslims should not be punished for leaving the faith. Citing conflicting opinions from different religious sources, he has declared that there is no definitive edict against playing or performing music. He has said it is permissible, with some restrictions, for Muslim financial institutions to charge interest on loans. He has ruled unequivocally that women may serve as judges and hold political office. He has been equally bold in saying there should be no Islamic political parties, on the grounds that they create divisions between Muslims—a view that makes officials of Egypt’s Islamist Muslim Brotherhood uneasy.

Even as Al-Azhar-trained scholars go, Gomaa is a sheik with a difference. A practical and worldly man, he received his first university degree in commerce. Having memorized the Koran on his own, he entered Al-Azhar without going through the rigorous preparation of its high school system. After completing the highest degree in 1988, he taught law there, wrote some 25 books, and revived the old Islamic practice of informal “knowledge circles” at the university’s historic mosque. In these circles, as well as in the packed Q&A sessions that he introduced at the famous Sultan Hassan Mosque, where he delivered Friday sermons, Gomaa took on all who tried to simplify or distort the faith without knowledge of its traditions.

Still, his renown did not reach far beyond Egypt or even Cairo until, as mufti, he began to appear on popular broadcast and satellite programs. Bright, well-educated, and younger Muslims in particular found his manner refreshing and his message liberating. “I never used to listen to his predecessor,” a 27-year-old Cairo physician says. “But when Ali Gomaa comes on, I pay attention. And not just me.”

Loyal following. Another person who paid attention, and who then went on to promote the mufti’s style of orthodoxy, is Moez Masoud, a 30-year-old advertising executive who, between writing and producing commercials, has become a highly successful Muslim televangelist. From his first satellite broadcast in 2002 through last fall’s 20-part series The Right Way, Masoud has built a loyal following among young Muslims whose lives share many features of his own. Educated in American schools throughout the Middle East, including the American University in Cairo, he excelled at everything he touched, from sports to music to academics. But while devouring western philosophy, cultivating postmodern irony, and experimenting with the hedonistic lifestyle glamorized in western media, he felt a gnawing emptiness for which religion increasingly seemed the cure. The only problem was that the Islam most forcefully on display was that of the simplifiers and Islamists, whose aggressive efforts to recruit the clearly charismatic student ultimately repelled him.

Crediting his education and a fairly strong religious upbringing for arming him against the emotionally seductive appeals of the extremists, he says his big breakthrough was coming upon an audio lecture by Gomaa, then still a professor at Al-Azhar. Before long, Masoud was attending the sheik’s knowledge circles and memorizing the Koran on his own. He became a committed Muslim in 1996, four years before taking to the air to bring his understanding of traditional Islam to issues like dating, drinking, homosexuality, and the pressures of living in a fast-paced, materialistic world. “The traditional voice was not dominant back then,” Masoud says over tea in his sparely decorated Cairo apartment, “but it was providential that it found me. That’s what drives me, and that’s the voice that I want to make dominant.”

But the voices of skepticism are not to be dismissed. One is Khairy Ramadan, a prominent editor and columnist at Al-Ahram and Al-Masry Al-Youm as well as a widely regarded talk-show fixture. “The mufti has enlightened views and great fatwas,” he says, “but the people receive them with hesitation because they feel they come from the establishment.” Like the mufti, Ramadan believes the West ignores the enlightened strain of Islam that still runs strong in the Middle East, but he insists that the biggest inducement to extremism is not a shortage of moderate clerics or respect for traditional jurisprudence but the economic and social inequalities arising out of a lack of democracy—a condition that, in his view, America cynically condones.

Equally wary is the popular novelist Alaa Al Aswany, author of the Arabic-language bestseller The Yacoubian Building. Addressing a small gathering at the office of an Egyptian opposition party, he is unsparing about the role of Egypt’s ulema: “Some sheiks are put in office because they reduce the problems of life to daily rituals,” he says, adding that the teaching of such clerics merely “distracts people from what matters.” Though he finds much to admire about Gomaa’s ideas, he says that the mufti would have far more authority among the people if he were elected by his peers and not installed by the government. “That determines everything,” Al Aswany adds, “whether you are part of the government or are opposed to it.”

But Abdullah Schleifer, a former journalist and emeritus professor of media studies at American University in Cairo, rejects what he calls the knee-jerk judgments of the secularist left. “I know Ali Gomaa has changed lives,” he says. “He’s been on the cutting edge of what young people are dealing with who are orthodox, or want to be, but are very influenced by the West. He’s the link between the sweet orthodoxy of the young and the scholarly tradition.”

Salaams. A good friend of mine, Ibrahim Tahir, wrote a succinct review of the book, The Islamist, written by Ed Husain. I have read the book and I found the book to be extremely useful in understanding one of the paths of radicalisation within the Muslim community. For those interested in the evolution of a Muslim to extremism, read the book as it provides a personal and interesting account.

The Islamist: Why I Joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I Saw Inside and Why I Left
By Ed Husain

To Islamists and Fundamentalists, Islam is a Political Movement, the Quran a Manifesto, the Ummah a Utopia and tradition is a distracting Opiate. Adaab (noble comportment) is jettisoned for the sake of Revolution. Yes, Islamism has more in common with atheist Communism than with Gnostic religion. That Islamism—and the Islamist—is disconnected from Islam is all too clear in the memoirs of Ed Husain.

Ed relates in his book about how he was brought up a traditional Muslim; he even had a Sufi shaykh whom he looked upon as his grandfather. However, upon entering higher education, his desire to learn more about Islam led to a downward spiral that turned an open-minded, intelligent, practicing Muslim into a bigoted, violent activist.

What was unsettling for me was that the course of events that led to his radicalization seemed unavoidable. Perhaps it is a trick of the narrative format in which the book is written, but it is clear that his traditional, Sunni upbringing as well as his early education in a primary school where he mixed freely with non-Muslims, were no safeguards—at least not initially.

It is for this very reason—the notion of the inevitability of radicalization—that I believe this book is an important work. It sends a strong signal to Muslim parents as well as educators of the need to be pro-active in steering their charges away from the crooked path that leads to extremism, chauvinism, and ultimately violence and terrorism. No one is immune.

So is there no cure for this ailment? Perhaps the best course of action is prevention.

Ed Husain’s book raises many important questions. But at least there is some small comfort that people like Ed are coming to the forefront, calling a spade a spade and forcing Muslims to look within to bring about change. More must be done by the ‘silent’ majority. Why do we put up with fundamentalists who distribute their books, blare on their
microphones, and lure our children with free education?

Traditional Islam, drawing upon 1400 years of scholarship, spiritual flowering and artistic elaboration is more that well equipped to deal with this aberration in Islamic history. The question is, are Traditional Muslims drawing upon their heritage effectively and saying
‘No, not anymore’ to the Islamist who claims to speak for Muslims.

Perhaps we need to reflect on the words of Martin Luther King Jr: “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”

I applaud Ed’s bravery in writing this book.

May the bane of Islamism be short-lived and its chapter in world history be thin.