Webinar on Islam and GLBITQ Issues

By Pamela Taylor

It's been forever since I've posted on this blog, but I felt this event might be of interest to readers here and their friends.

Muslims for Progressive Values will kick off our live web seminar series with GLBITQ activist El-Farouk Khaki speaking on "Islam: A Universe of Universal Love."

Tune in February 24th at 5 p.m. EST to hear the presentation live at:
www.mpvusa.org/news/values-live/seminar-on-glbtiq-rights/
The talk will also be available for future download.

• Learn about progressive interpretations of Islamic law and how they positively affect GLBITQ rights.
• Discuss love's centrality to a Muslim's spiritual life.
• Get involved by submitting your questions and comments live!
• Read and reflect on the talk on our blog at ProgressiveIslam.org

El-Farouk Khaki (born October 26, 1963) is a Canadian refugee and immigration lawyer and human rights activist on issues including gender equality, sexual orientation, and progressive Islam. He is the New Democratic Party's candidate for the House of Commons in the riding of Toronto Centre in a by-election being held on March 17, 2008.

In 1993, he founded Salaam, the first queer Muslim group in Canada and second in the world. In 2003, he organized the first female-led, mixed-gender Muslim congregational prayers in Canada for the Salaam/Al-Fateha International Conference, and in 2005, organized the first such prayers anywhere to be held in a mosque, and he has been involved in every such public event in Canada since. Among other involvements, he has served on the Toronto Mayor’s Committee on Community & Race Relations, on the board of The 519 Community Centre, and is now elected chair of Africans in Partnership Against AIDS.

Khaki regularly speaks publicly at events and in news media on issues ranging from refugee protection, to the global AIDS crisis, Canadian multiculturalism, racism, persecution of sexual minorities around the world, and religious and racial profiling in the war on terror, among other topics. His appearances include CTV's morning television program Canada AM, CBC Radio One's The Current, and others.

In spring 2007, Khaki received the prestigious Steinert and Ferreiro Award from the Lesbian and Gay Community Appeal Foundation for his "major role in paving the way in Canada for refugee protection on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender", and ground-breaking work on gender equality in the Muslim community. The previous summer, Pride Toronto, one of the world’s largest gay-pride festivals, recognized his work building tolerance and inclusiveness in the Muslim community with the 2006 Pride Award for Excellence in Spirituality.

Muslims for Progressive Values (MPV) seeks to bring together progressive Muslims and friends who share their values to work for a more humane world. We welcome all who are interested in discussing, promoting and working for the implementation of progressive values — social justice, human rights, economic opportunity, separation of church and state — as well as tolerant and inclusive understandings of Islam.

Clergy Call for Justice -- Hate Crimes and Workplace Discrimination

By Pamela K. Taylor

Yesterday saw a victory for what should be no-brainer legislation; a bill that would extend federal hate crimes legislation to include the glbt community passed in the House. The Senate is expected to take the matter up soon, and I urge everyone to call their senators and ask her/him to support this bill.

I also encourage you to talk to both your senators and your representative about legislation that would make workplace discrimination against glbts expressly illegal. This legislation is expected by the end of the year, and is desperately needed as it is still legal in 36 states to fire someone simply because they are gay.

I had the honor to participate two weeks ago in a lobbying effort by religious leaders in support of the bill. Organized by the Human Rights Campaign, the Clergy Call for Justice brought over 225 religious leaders from every major faith tradition (and a few smaller ones) and every state in the union to support the right of members of the glbt community to live in safety, just like any other human being in this country.

The religious right have long tried to impose the notion that if you are a person of faith, you cannot be a liberal. They have tried to claim that the far right has the cornerstone on morality. That Tuesday morning, two weeks ago was a proud day for the religious left. A day where we stand up and said, "No! Our faith teaches us that every human is loved by God. Every human has the same inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That we should want for our brothers and sisters what we want for ourselves, and that is moral. That is just."

If you are a person of faith -- please, please call and let your elected officials know that you are a Christian or a Jew or whatever you are, and that your faith calls for equality for all
-------------

When not raising a boisterous family and blogging at In This Moment, Pamela participates in The Washington Post/Newsweek On Faith online discussion.

Iraq & the logic that dare not speak its name

By Diane Silver

Josh Marshall over at Talking Points Memo writes today:

For all the endless debate about strategy and tactics, past and present about Iraq, it is astonishing how little the public debate in this country entertains the idea that the occupation itself is the cause of the unrest and violence in the country.

This isn't an original and unheard of concept. I know that. Indeed, it's common sense. But in our public debate it is what we might call the logic that dare not speak its name.

Marshall may well be right. His post is an interesting read.

In This Moment's Pamela K. Taylor made the same point in January in President Bush's Iraq Plan.

There ARE many paths up the mountain to enlightenment

By Diane Silver

There are many paths to enlightenment, or to the divine if you prefer, or so I've always believed. I am so pleased to see our very own Pamela K. Taylor post that thought at On Faith. Unfortunately, I'm not so pleased to see all the hate she gets in response to a very inclusive statement. I haven't read all the comments, but the first few are choice. We have a lot to learn as human beings.

Pamela K. Taylor's Greatest Hits

• Eid ul Adha & the culture of commercialism
• The Baker-Hamilton Panel tells us the obvious about Iraq
• This weekend Muslim women take matters into their own hands
  
• President Bush's Iraq Plan
  
• Just a little more on Rep. Ellison & Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an
  
• The Progressive Muslim Union and the Great Niqab Debate
• Am I safe? Pondering hope & despair under the new detainee law
  
• Homegrown terrorism
• Sensationalizing terror arrests hurts us all

Our very own Pamela K. Taylor doesn't post as often as before because she has flown off to the big time. You can find her essays these days at The Washington Post/Newsweek online feature, On Faith.

From the Washington Post: Homosexuality and the Qur'an

By Pamela K. Taylor

As you may have noticed, I've been very quiet of late. This is, in part, because I have started a new assignment, writing for the On Faith section of Newsweek/The Washington Post online.

Each week the panelists are asked to address a question. This week the topic was gay clergy and gay marriage. I thought many here might be interested in a progressive, humane reading of the Qur'an and hadith (narrations about the Prophet as related by his companions.)

You can find my essay at The Washington Post and Newsweek site.

Applause for one of our own!

By Diane Silver

As the proprietor of In This Moment, I am pleased to announce that one of our writers, Pamela K. Taylor, is now also blogging at The Washington Post/Newsweek web site's On Faith section. And, oh yes, Pamela will also continue to post right here at In This Moment.

Wahoo, and hearty congratulations to Pamela!

We must do more than talk; we must act

By Pamela K. Taylor

Last year I wrote an essay for the NPR Program, This I Believe, about the challenges of acting on deeply held, but very controversial beliefs. In my case, it was giving the sermon and leading the prayers for a mixed-gender congregation in a mosque.

Read more at Becoming The Change.

President Bush's Iraq Plan

From Pamela:

Listening to President Bush speak tonight, I couldn't help but wonder where he is living... Pleasantville? The Truman Show? La-La Land?

He (or his speechwriter and advisors) seem to have missed the most salient point. The sectarian violence in Iraq isn't about Sunni and Shii. Iraqi Sunnis and Shiis have historically gotten along well. It's about politics. It's about who supported America's strong man, Saddam Hussein back when he was still our buddy. It's about who supports the current American sponsored government, and who doesn't. It's about who cooperated with American troops and who didn't. That is the fundamental, root source of the conflict -- not concerns about sectarian theological differences.

As long as the US is involved, the conflict will escalate. The reprisals against collaborators will grow ever more intense. The stakes for those who are in power (more or less) will become higher and higher, as the guarantee of disruption and wholesale rebellion grows with each passing day they are seen as sell outs to the US occupation.

And, yes, that's what most of the world perceives it as. Not a war. Not a humanitarian effort to bring freedom to Iraq. But an occupation aimed as ensuring the US and Israel have access to Iraq's oil.

The resistence (otherwise known as terrorists in Bush's lingo) perceives themselves as trying to oust an invading and occupying army. Stepping up the number of troops on police duty isn't going to solve that problem.

The longer we are there, the more intense the resistence will become.

President Bush did have one thing right. If we leave now, Iraq will descend into chaos. I'm pretty sure that is accurrate. What he didn't say, was that when we leave in a year, or two or ten, that chaos will no doubt be even worse, the attrocities even more horrific.

I don't see any hope of the US and the new Iraqi government transforming Iraq into some fairy tale democracy like Bush spoke of. That has to be done by the Iraqis, not imposed by the army of another country. The longer we are there, the longer it will take for Iraqi to achieve those dreams after we leave.

Just a little more on Rep. Ellison & Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an

By Pamela K. Taylor

In the past few weeks, the blogosphere has been afire over Rep.-Elect Keith Ellison's plan to take his oath on the Qur'an during the ceremonial Congressional swearing-in that is taking place this week. Led by nationally syndicated pundit Dennis Praeger and goaded on by Republican representative from Virginia, Virgil Goode, Ellison's critics have complained that using a Qur'an is un-American, claiming that only Bibles are acceptable for taking oaths as this country is a Christian nation.

Now it has surfaced that Ellison is planning to take his oath on a Qur'an owned by none other than, our third President, Thomas Jefferson, the principle author of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson was also author of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, and a staunch supporter of religious freedom.

This law reads:

"No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."

One can't help but think that Thomas Jefferson would wholly approve of Mr. Ellison swearing on the religious book that means the most to him, especially as it is one from Mr. Jefferson's personal library.

As an Ellision spokesperson says, "Jefferson's Quran dates religious tolerance to the founders of our country," he added.

The Qur'an itself was published in 1764, some twenty years after Ellison's ancestors arrived in America.

One can only hope that representatives with opinions such as Mr. Goode's -- who called Mr. Ellison's proposal a threat to American values -- will reconsider just what America's values are. We have never been a nation dedicated to implementing Christianity, or even to Christian values. Rather, we were founded on the notion that religion and morality is fundamentally a personal issue, one which the state has no business regulating, whether that relates to the God you worship, your choice of marriage partner, or any other moral issue.

For more discussion on the issue, look at In This Moment's comments and click here, or here, or here.

Eid ul Adha and the Culture of Commericalism

As we are celebrating the last day of Eid ul Adha and still recovering from the Christmas magic/mania, I thought I would post an article I wrote last year about the challenge the ever greater retail hype around Christmas poses to minority communities and the celebration of our holidays. With Christmas displays in some Cincinnati stores area going up before Halloween (an all time record for earliest retail Christmas campaign), the article is as relevant this year as it was last.


Religious Minorities and the Allure of Materialism
By Pamela K. Taylor

With Christmas still fresh in our minds, American Muslims are looking forward to our own holiday, Eid ul-Adha, a three day celebration that marks the successful completion of the Hajj, Islam’s annual pilgrimage to Mecca. For minority communities, Christmas is always a challenge, especially for those of us with kids. The lights, the carols, decorating the tree, candy covered gingerbread houses, Santa, his sleigh and his reindeer, and, most of all, the presents. It’s child heaven. The pressure to compete is fierce and many of us feel an enormous need to prove that our own faith has as much to offer kids, or at the very least that it has its own really good traditions even if they aren’t quite as glamorous as Christmas.

This year the Muslim community was particularly lucky. Christmas was neatly sandwiched between the two major events of the Islamic calendar – Ramadan and Hajj. With Ramadan and Eid ul Fitr falling in October, we had our own special month of fellowship and celebration to buttress the kids’ fortitude just before the November/December deluge. When the kids asked why we don’t celebrate Christmas, Muslim parents could point our own recent time of dinner parties, special foods, holiday sweets, new clothes, and, of course, presents. And if that didn’t quite satisfy their craving, we could remind them that Hajj and Eid ul-Adha was coming just a couple weeks later. More parties, more new clothes… more presents.

And there’s the rub. The push-pull. You want Eid to be just as good as Christmas, but you look at the stress, the holiday rush, the hassle of finding just the right gift for everyone on your list, the self-inflicted pressure to make Christmas perfect for the kids, and shudder to think Eid could become like that. You want it to be as fun and as memorable, but you don’t want it to become a carbon copy. You want to maintain its authenticity, but you’re not sure that authenticity can quite measure up, and you’re not sure you want it to, even if it could.

On the one hand, you’re delighted to find out that Hallmark is now making Eid cards and when you mail them you can pay your postage with a USPS Eid Stamp. You rejoice to find an Indian princess Barbie or building blocks with Arabian arches and domes. In a country where a person’s status is more often than not judged by the strength of his pocketbook, retail acknowledgement of Ramadan, Hajj, and the two Eids talks big to kids. It’s a validation of their identities as American and Muslims. It shows them that we are part and parcel of the fabric of this country, that we belong, we’re accepted.

On the other hand, you dread too much retail attention. You worry that consumerism will gut the spiritual aspects of Eid the way it has gutted much of the meaning of Christmas. When you set out your presents for Eid morning, you hope the kids realize that Eid is more about being grateful to God than getting goodies. You wonder if you would have gotten the kids quite so many presents if the spectacle of Christmas gift giving hadn’t just upped the ante two weeks ago. You wonder if the need to measure up is leading you down the garden path into the waiting arms of Sam’s Club and Kmart. And you wish that the Christian community hadn’t bought quite so fully into market capitalism’s message that more is better.

All along, to make matters worse, you’re second guessing yourself. When you hang lights, as Muslims in many countries do during Ramadan, you wonder if the kids will think you’re trying to copy Christmas, and sometimes you wonder yourself. When you pass out cookies to guests – a time honored Ramadan tradition, although in other cultures the norm may be baklava, date pasties, or sweet puddings, rather than coconut macaroons, powdered teacakes, lemon tarts, and chocolate peanut butter bull’s eyes – you hope the kids don’t think you’re just trying to trump sugar cookies with red and green sprinkles. You look to the American Jewish community and Hannukah, a relatively minor holiday in other Jewish communities which, because of it’s timing, has taken on a much larger role here, and wonder if this is a good thing, or a bad thing. It’s great to be able to say, look we’ve got it just as good as the rest of America, but not if it means you have to distort your own traditions all out of proportion.

It isn’t easy to decide how much rivalry is good and how much is too much, to know where the line lies between unhealthy competition and the kind that, like a longstanding school rivalry, deepens and intensifies loyalty. It’s tough to know whether to buying into American consumerism whole-heartedly, half-way, or not at all will help your kids learn to love their own traditions rather than look on others’ celebrations with envy. Will the glitz of all-out materialism make them love Eid the way Christian kids love Christmas (and do you want them to love it because of that, even if it does?) Or will they appreciate a more even-handed approach that balances fun with spirituality? Or perhaps, will they find the peace and tranquility of a more austere holiday that uplifts and instills a feeling of purity and grace more attractive?

Clearly there is no one answer that fits all children or all families. Sometimes, you feel like you are throwing darts at a board with your eyes closed, hoping you don’t hit anything fragile in the process. Other times, you move forward confidently, assured that you’re making the right choices, and trusting that God has guided you down the right path. But even in the best of times, it’s a balancing act in which you always feel a bit off-kilter.

Civil Rights, Civil Unions, Religion and the State from an Muslim Activist's Eyes

By Pamela K. Taylor

I want to point readers to an article written by a Muslim activist who was in Wisconsin recently canvassing against that state's ammendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman, and denying legal status to civil unions and common law marriages.

The amendment to the state constitution reads:

That marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state and that a legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state.

The article is a beautiful explanation of how civil rights must be applied across the board, and how the encroachment of religious traditions into politics must be challenged. It's a sincere and heartfelt demonstration of how an individual can support another human being's right to self-determination in every matter, including marriage, even though that individual believes his religion prohibits same-sex and common law marriages.

To me, it is clear that all human beings should have the right to make their own moral decisions, that freedom of religion should apply even to those whose religious choices you don't agree with.

Of course, the matter is complicated because religious freedom is not absolute. It is tempered by other freedoms and social needs. A society's need for security may justify laws which require those who veil their faces to reveal their identity under certain circumstances. Similarly, religious traditions which inflict bodily harm on their participants (say suicide cults or practices such as fgm) may be outlawed by society.

But in instances where no one is being physically harmed, and security is not endangered, then we have no moral authority to insist that any one religious interpretation can be imposed upon the entirety of society.

The Baker-Hamilton Panel on Iraq tells us the obvious about the need to change course

By Pamela K. Taylor

Today's headlines:
Panel: Bush's Iraq policies have failed
Gates says U.S. isn't winning Iraq war
Panel Urges Basic Shift in U.S. Policy in Iraq

As much "I told you so's" are not useful, this is really a "haven't we been saying this for months" moment.

The fact of the matter is, having made a huge mess in a country we should have left alone in the first place, we are now stuck. If we pull out, Iraq seems sure to descend into a really nasty civil war, and will likely emerge with an Islamist regime along the lines of its neighbor, Iran. If we stay, we get dragged into the really nasty civil war, lose a lot more American lives, and are unable to prevent that Islamist regime from coming into power. Either way, it seems pretty much inevitable that large numbers of Iraqis are going to lose their lives along the way, and the eventual government of Iraq is going to hold substantial grudges against the US.

So what can we do?

It's pretty clear to me that the longer we stay, the worse it is going to be. Violence against people perceived as collaborators is at an all time high. That's what much of reported sectarian violence is about. It's more the people cooperating with the US vs the people resisting what they perceive as an occupation than it is sunni vs shi'a simply because they are sunni and shi'a. Pre-existing political tensions between the former ruling Sunni minority and the Shia majority, as well as religious differences only exacerbate the situation, but the underlying cause is the continued presence of American combat troops in Iraq and divisions between Iraqis as to what to do about it -- go along with American plans as nicely as possible so we will leave sooner, or try to force us out.

The longer we stay, the greater the military attempts to get us to leave, and to pressure our collaborators, will become. If we leave in three years, it will be worse than if we leave in two years. If we leave in two years, it will be worse than if we leave in one. The sooner we can begin to withdraw, the sooner Iraq can begin to heal.

It is probably not a good idea to simply leave a vacuum. The Arab states, or the UN should send peacekeeping forces to the country in an attempt to minimize the bloodshed, but what really needs to happen is something along the lines of Truth and Reconcilliation a la South Africa.

Iraq has lived for decades under a ruthless military dictator and the wounds from that time are still festering. Two wars with America and one occupation later, and the wounds are becoming life-threatening. Only by a national reconciliation process will the country be able to heal and put the past behind it. Otherwise, simmering tensions will surely erupt in ten, twenty, thirty years as they did in the former Yugoslavia.

As much as I think the US ought to make feasible this sort of effort with monetary contributions, I also think that we need to stay out of the process. It must be 100% genuine and 100% Iraqi, with no possibility of a perception of outside interference.

As we withdraw and after we have withdrawn, we need to make reparations to the Iraqi people. I'm not talking throwing some money at American contractors... money that never gets translated into projects that improve the quality of life for Iraqi people. I mean rebuilding the country's infrastructure, building hospitals, universites, factories, providing scholarships for Iraqis who want to study in American universities, especially Iraqis who want to study medicine, engineering, chemistry, business administration, etc.

We owe Iraq a lot after supporting Hussein, the first Iraq war, ten years of sanctions, and the second Iraq war. Having devastated their country, it is our responsibility to rebuild it. And rather than trying to dominate whatever new government emerges in Iraq with force and military threats, we should win their trust with generosity.

And we shouldn't expect to be met with smiling faces, rather we can expect to be greeted with suspicion and mistrust for many, many years to come. The Iraqis aren't going to forget what we did to them any more than the Iranians forget the Mossadegh and the Shah. Americans may not remember that the Iranian Revolution was a direct result of us toppling the democratically elected Mossadegh and supporting the Shah with his notorious secret police, the Savik, but the Iranians surely so.

So too, we can expect the Iraqis to hold long grudges that we supported Saddam Hussein when he was gassing his own people, and sending political enemies to be tortured. We can expect them to remember that we invaded their country on false pretenses. If we take the steps to atone for our treatment of their country, they and other people's who rightfully view the US as a self-interested bully, will slowly rediscover respect for us.

There is an awful lot that is good about America -- from our Constitution with its freedoms, particuarly freedom of speech and religion, to an insistence on due process in the courts and checks and balances in federal and states governments, and a individualism that has historically resulted in the most class fluid society in the world.

But that beauty and moral high ground has been crowded out by our unconscionable foreign policy since WWII, both in countering the spread of communism and in ensuring access to the world's oil reserves and other natural resources.

I know the deplorable conditions in many countries with rich natural resources cannot be laid solely at the feet of multi-national corporations and the countries that back them up -- indigenous mismanagement and corruption has played a vital role. And I know that people will say that only developed nations had the expertise, wealth, and technology to be able to develop those resources, which may well be true.

But it remains the case that we have developed natural resources without at the same time developing the countries where those natural resources are located, we have protected our own access and ability to continue developing those resources at the cost of human dignity and at the price of huge amounts of human sufferring.

It would have been better to help those countries build the infrastructure, manufacturing base, techonology sector, etc, to use their own resources themselves. Would we have been less wealthy -- in terms of dollars? Yes. In terms of our contribution to human welfare? No. In terms of friends and allies? Definately not.

Our foreign policy has concentrated on material wealth over human dignity and the importance of building allies through generosity for too long. Iraq would be a good place to start changing course.

This weekend Muslim women take matters into their own hands

By Pamela K. Taylor

This weekend in New York 100 Muslim women activists, artists and scholars, including myself, will meet with the express purpose of developing forums and structures to empower Muslim women to play a greater role in their societies worldwide.

Called WISE: The Women's Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equity, the conference is a forum for Muslim women leaders to:

• discuss global Muslim women's issues
• assert our rights through the use of and in accordance with Islamic law
• build a coherent movement that empowers and connects Muslim women everywhere.

One item on the agenda is the formation of an International Shura Council of Muslim Women. A Shura Council is an advisory body that interprets Islamic law for the political and religious leaders in its region of authority. Also under discussion will be the creation of a global fund to provide scholarships for Muslim women to be educated in Islamic jurisprudence, thereby qualifying them to serve on the Shura Council of Women.

I have some concerns about this council. The current plan is for it to be made up of six women. That's not very many. I would have gone for 10 at least and preferably 12. With only six, it is more difficult to ensure a diversity of opinions, which as far as I'm concerned, is essential to the operation of any such body.

Also, when the proposal speaks of being educated in Islamic jurisprudence and qualified to serve on the Shura council, that raises alarm bells for me.

Will a degree in theology from a Western university count, or does the woman have to go to a Middle Eastern country for her education? If a Middle Eastern trip is required, that would make it virtually impossible for most of us to qualify. Few women can just drop family and career for two or three years to study overseas, even with scholarships. Furthermore, will self-educated women be seen as qualified as are self-educated men -- men like Jamal Badawi who is an internationally recognized scholar despite having no Islamic degrees?

And if you have to be qualified at an accepted Islamic university, then what is the likelihood that this Shura council will challenge standing interpretations that are terribly prejudicial against women?

Amazingly, thousands of women demonstrated in support of the sheikh who compared women to uncovered meat and hundreds of women protested Pakistan's recent decision to remove rape from a legal code that allowed women who were raped to be prosecuted and imprisioned for the crime of committing extra-marital sex. (!!) These women insisted that rape deserves the same punishment as voluntary fornication! As if rape weren't a punishiment to begin with!! If the council works to maintain male hegemony and traditional interpretations, then it could quite possibly do more harm than good.

However, I am hopeful that all of these concerns will prove fruitless, especially as they are shared with quite a few other women who I know and who are attending. The very fact that progressive Muslim women who buck traditional interpretations have been invited is a good sign, indeed!

Other discussion items will be:

• the major obstacles facing Muslim women and the creation of strategies to address them
• how to increase women's religious & political leadership via faith-fueled activism
• challenging local customs that impinge on women's rights
• developing effective methods to change negative perceptions about Muslim women.

I'm even more hopeful on these fronts, though I don't expect there to be any overnight changes. Still, organizations such as this can be very empowering to Muslim women. By focusing the community's attention on some very basic issues which plague many parts of the Muslim world, I hope we can be agents for positive change.

At the very least, it's absolutely essential for Muslim women to stand up and say: "Enough is enough. Women deserve better, and I will not stand by idly while my sisters are harmed."

The Progressive Muslim Union and the great Niqab Debate

By Pamela K. Taylor



As many of you may know, I'm Co-Chair of the Progressive Muslim Union. A lot of people ask me what does that mean. Are we political/economic Progressives who happen to be Muslim? (Yes.) Muslims who are progressive about our Islam? (That too.) Or some weird mix? (No doubt.) Are we excited to see the Republicans lose a bit of power. (Yahoo!!!)

As the debate about niqab (the face veil that leaves only eyes showing, or sometimes not even those) rages in Britain, there has been a small murmur here in the States. A few op-eds, but mostly heads stuck in the sand. Meanwhile, there have been challenges in various states to laws requiring that a woman's face be visible on her driver's license. What the point of an ID where you can't identify the person is, I'm not sure, but that these challenges are being seen here in the US means we should not ignore this issue.

The radicalism of Britain's Muslim community is caused by a lot of factors, many of which are absent in America. As a result, the American Muslim population tends to be a lot more moderate than that of Britain. But there is also an intensive proslyetizing effort on the part of the most conservative elements going on in the US. We should be thinking about issues surrounding the niqab such as can a public school teacher be required to remove her face veil during class. Or can a theater or sporting arena demand to verify one's identity before one enters? What about a police officer stopping a woman for a traffic violation?

Anyway, I wanted to post the Progressive Muslim Union's position (penned by yours truly with help from members of the Muslim Canadian Congress) to open some dicussion on these issues before they get dumped in our lap. We don't want to be reacting on an instinctive rather than rational basis. Here's our position.

The Progressive Muslim Union urges Muslim women to reject the Niqab

It's neither required by Islam nor is it a mark of civil society

The Progressive Muslim Union acknowledges the right of a woman to dress as she sees fit, but we maintain that the use of the face veil as an expression religious identity or as a symbol of political defiance is neither in the best interests of Muslim women and the Muslim community at large, nor is it a requirement of the Islamic faith. We also remind the Muslim community that the religious rights and freedoms of an individual have to be balanced with the rights of the wider society and measured by the impact it may have on Muslims in North America.

Religious grounds

For Muslims, what is prescribed in the Quran is obligatory, with the proviso, also from the Quran, that "there is no compulsion in matters of faith."

The following verse prescribes modesty of dress, demeanor, and conduct:

"Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that would make for greater purity for them and God is well acquainted with all that they do. And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) thereof, that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands' fathers, their sons or their husbands and sons ortheir sisters sons or their women or their slaves whom their right hands possessor male servants free of physical needs or small children who've no sense of theshame of sex and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments and O ye who believe turn ye altogether towards God that ye may attain bliss."- (Quran 24:30,31)

The Quran, we see, is explicit in asking women to cover their chests, but nowhere does God ask women to cover their faces.

This is confirmed by a narration from the Prophet's life. Sahih Bukhari, Volume 8, Book 74, Hadith Number 247 reads:

Narrated 'Abdullah bin 'Abbas:

Al-Fadl bin 'Abbas rode behind theProphet as his companion rider on the back portion of his she camel on the Day of Nahr (slaughtering of sacrifice, 10th Dhul-Hijja) and Al-Fadl was a handsome man. The Prophet stopped to give the people verdicts. In the meantime, a beautiful woman from the tribe of Khath'am came, asking the verdict of Allah's Apostle. Al-Fadl started looking at her as her beauty attracted him. The Prophet looked behind while Al-Fadl was looking at her; so the Prophet held out his hand backwards and caught the chin of Al-Fadl and turned his face in order that he should not gaze at her...

Clearly the woman's face was uncovered, and, equally clearly, the Prophet did not ask her to cover it, not even when the young man began staring at her.

Even conservative scholars such as Dr Yousuf al-Qaradawi, agree that the niqab is not mandatory according to Islam. He recently said in a Friday sermon, "It is not obligatory on Muslim women to wear the Niqab (full face veil)." He went on to tell his congregation, "The majority of Muslim scholars and I do not support the Niqab in which women cover their faces."

Social Issues

Security:

Every society has a legitimate need to know a person's identity under certain circumstances - on public transportation and in public venues such as theaters or sporting arenas. We need to be able to identify an individual when he or she is voting, completing banking transactions, or being pulled over for a traffic violation. Increasingly retail outlets are requesting photo IDs when customers use a credit card due to the raging epidemic of identity theft. Veiling of the face makes such identification impossible, especially when the wearer refuses to remove the veil even temporarily, or demands photos for driver's licenses and other id be taken with the face veil in place.

The needs of a society to be able to identify its citizens in some circumstances outweighs even religious rights and freedoms.

Economic Impact:

A face veil will invariably close the doors for most professions where face-to-face human interaction is absolutely essential. A man or a woman in a face mask is unlikely to find employment in North America as a police officer, a physician, a retail clerk, a nurse, a school teacher, an airline pilot, a journalist, an elected official, a taxi driver, a judge, a lawyer, a bank clerk, or even as an office receptionist.

Virtually any job that requires face to face interaction will be unavailable to women who wears a face veil. Wearing niqab thus virtually ensures that women are forced to retreat from the workforce and to remain within the home, being permanently dependent on their husbands, fathers or brothers. While raising children is a serious endeavor which should not be discounted, neither should the importance of an economically vibrant community, nor women's needs for intellectual stimulation outside of the home, economic independence, and in many instances a job simply to feed, clothe and house their children.

The face veil adds another obstacle to the economic empowerment of the Muslim community, which already faces ethnic and religious discrimination in the workplace. Instead of trying to overcome the hurdles and fight discrimination, advocates of the niqab are creating additional obstacles in the path of progress for North American Muslims.

Social and Familial Pressures:

The Progressive Muslim Union is aware, that like members of any minority group, Muslim women can come under intense pressure to conform to certain norms of behaviour and dress, to overtly display community patriotism, and to remain silent regarding the organized, institutional disenfranchisement of Muslim women.

We are gravely concerned that although many North American women choose of their own free will to wear the veil, that their choices are effectively limited by social and/or familial pressure. The Saudi Arabian clerical establishment, with access to oil wealth and the patronage of the Saudi and American governments, has been aggressively exporting the notion that niqab is required in Islam.

This phenomenon is the product of the 20th century accession of the family of Ibn Saud to power in the states of Nejd and Hijaz where the showing of a female face was determined to be a punishable offence. Historically, from the early Arab Ummayads and Abbasides to the Persian Safavids, the Indian Moghuls and the Turkish Ottomans, at no time have Muslim women ever been required to cover their faces as an act of religiosity and piety, or national law.

In defiance of religious teachings and Muslim history and heritage, the proponents of Wahhabi Islam are today targeting young Muslim women, convincing them of their own second-class status.

The Progressive Muslim Union urges all Muslim organisations to refute the myth being spread that the Saudi sponsored face veil is a matter of piety, individual choice and religious practice.

We also remind all Muslims that the relgious freedoms we call upon so freely in supporting women who wear niqab and hijab, extends equally to Muslim women who choose not to wear the niqab or the headscarf. Women who do not wear scarves or face veils, for whatever reason, should not experience discrimination within the community, or pressure to change their practice or their point of view. It is sheer hypocricy to demand freedom of religion for the most conservative of Muslims, while declining to extend it to another subset of our community.

Am I safe? Pondering hope & despair under the new detainee law

By Pamela K. Taylor

As I watched with incredulity as our government legalized what most of us would consider torture, strip habeas corpus rights from "enemy combatants" who could be American citizens, allow hearsay, coerced testimony, secret evidence (in which a defendant does not know the evidence, or perhaps even the charge, against him), indefinite detentions with no trial, I wavered between disbelief and despair.

I have real fears that the government may go on a spree, rounding up whoever they like, without any of us having the right to challenge that imprisonment.

Am I safe?

Before 9-11, my husband and I had been supporting an orphan through an organization that turned out to be siphoning the funds to terrorist groups in Afghanistan. (So says our government, but after Iraq and the elusive Weapons of Mass Destruction, I don't even know if I should believe that contention.) After we recovered from our fear of donating to Islamic charities, we picked an organization that had supposedly been cleared by Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, but only months later was shut down.

Will the fact that we picked poorly twice be seen as a pattern? Proof of nefarious intentions?

Will my outspoken opposition to many of America's foreign policies be used as an excuse to claim I'm giving comfort to terrorists? Will they pick me up, along with other folks who spoke at peace demonstrations?

I have young children, what would happen to them? Would relatives step up and take care of them, or would the courts appoint guardians from the foster care system? Would I have any say over who they go to?

It is a depressing thought, indeed.

The only lantern of hope I hold out is to consider the history of the 18th Amendment, creating the prohibition against alcohol. The amendment was a mistake, and a few years later, our elected officials realized that and repealed it. With any luck, in a few years (or even better a few months) our elected officials will pass a new law repealing the Military Commisions Act. Or, perhaps, the Supreme Court will strike it down as unconstitutional.

I have great hope that we won't continue down the path of increasing executive branch authority, decreasing checks and balances, and that we won't let fear gut the rights and liberties enshrined in the Constitution.

We have taken wrong turns before -- the shameful treatment of the native population, slavery, the internment of the Japanese, the McCarthy era. Sometimes it took only a few years to realize our mistake, and sometimes it took a lot longer. Hopefuly this one will take less time, rather than more.