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Moderate Islam is a
buzz word these days to reform the Muslim society. Many
Muslim rulers as well as Muslim and non-Muslim
experts/intellectuals/scholars are calling for ‘moderate
Islam’. President General Parvez Musharraf of Pakistan
is for Enlightened Moderation in Islam while Malaysian
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is promoting Islam
Hadhari (contemporary Islam).
To promote moderate
Islam in North America, Progressive Muslim Union (PMU)
was formed on November 15, 2004 by some professed
moderates who embrace the simple proposition that “you
are a Muslim if you say you are a Muslim -- for whatever
reason or set of reasons -- and that no one is entitled
to question or undermine this identity.” Ironically,
the PMU has drawn bitter criticism from both the staunch
advocates of moderate Islam, who do not find them
moderate at all, and also the mainstream Muslims and
scholars who see them as publicity monger perverted
Muslims who may prove a Trojan horse, by design or
default, for the Rand Report - titled "Civil Democratic
Islam: Partners, Resources, and Strategies" – that
calls for revamping of Islam by, among other things,
encouraging moderate Muslims to counter what it
described as fundamentalist and traditionalist Muslims.
An analysis of the
PMU statement of principles gives some insight into the
mindset of its founders. The PMU tries to create a big
tent to embrace Muslims of all shades, leanings and
schools of thought when it defined a Muslim as is anyone
who identifies herself or himself as "Muslim," including
those whose identification is based on social
commitments and cultural heritage. It also calls for
critical inquiry and dynamic engagement with Islamic
scripture (read Quran which Rand Report describes as
legend). The PMU also supports the political separation
of religious institutions and state functions, and the
strict neutrality of the state on matters of religion.
This provision may put them in the category of secular
Muslims rather than modernists.
The PMU has a bumpy
start as many invited to join its advisory board either
declined the request or were dropped because of their
support to Bush administration’s policies in Iraq. Among
those who are dropped from the advisory board are Seeme
and Malik Hassan, founders of Muslims For Bush website.
Their son Mohammad Ali Hassan wrote an article entitled:
The Muslim World's Savior (refering to Mr. Bush), that
included this sentence:"I believe Bush is bringing
liberation not war." Another person not included in the
board is Fareed Zakariyya who wrote in Newsweek (August
5th, 2002) that the invasion of Iraq is "the single
best path to reform the Arab world." Nawaal al-SadawI,
an Egyptian writer, was also dropped. She has campaigned
for the enforcement of the hijab (head scarf) ban in
French public schools. For many Muslims enforcing the
wearing of hijab is as reactionary as a ban on wearing
it.
Farid Esack, a
South African theologian who teaches at St. Xavier
University in Cincinnati, stunned the PMU organizers by
refusing an invitation to join the board. He didn't want
to work with those who, although they might defend
gender equity and homosexual rights, also support Bush's
"expansionist" policies. In a critique of the PMU, he
pointed out that the PMU’s emphasis on diversity and
pluralism rather than justice and liberation shows its
ideological lines clearly. “There is of course another
dimension – virtually the entire list that you have put
together consists of the mighty, wealthy and/or famous.
Is this really what progressive Islam is about?”
Not surprisingly,
the PMU was given wide coverage in the mainstream media.
The New York Times on Nov. 16, 2004 reported the launch
of the Progressive Muslim Union under the headline: A
little late, but a stand against hate. Before the formal
launching of the PMU, Washington Post on Oct. 16, 2004
carried a long story entitled: For U.S. Muslims, a push
from the progressive wing; broader rights backed for
women and gays. On Oct. 7, 2004, USA Today reported:
Progressive Muslim members plan to form the Progressive
Muslim Union of North America as an alternative U.S.
voice of Islam.
The PMU is being
launched at a time when Muslims remain under siege in
US. Since 9/11, and attack on Islam has become a past
time for many, particularly the Christian right. Just
two recent examples: (1) After the terrorist attacks on
Sept. 11, 2001, Franklin Graham called Islam "an evil
and wicked religion." In an interview with The Los
Angles Times on Nov. 27, 2004, he was asked if he still
thought of Islam in the same way. "I haven't changed my
mind," he said. (2) Bruce Tefft, a founder of the CIA's
counter-terrorism center and now an advisor to the New
York Police Department's intelligence and
counter-terrorism divisions, told a seminar in Canada on
Dec. 8, 2004: Islamic terrorism is based on Islam as
revealed through the Qu'ran and that while there may be
moderate Muslims, Islam itself is immoderate.
The PMU apparently
comes as a response to this pressure on the American
Muslim community. The PMU founders in their formal
launching statement emphasized: “PMU will defend the
Muslim community from the calumnies of those who seek to
insult and degrade Islam and/or the Muslim community, in
particular the relentless campaign of defamation from
some evangelical preachers, like Jerry Falwell and Pat
Robertson, or from supporters of the extreme right in
Israel, like Daniel Pipes.” A prompt response from
Pipes was not unexpected. He described the PMU founders
as “the worst Islamist and leftist extremists in the
United States.”
It has to be seen
how the PMU will be received by the American Muslim
community and will it be successful to become an
effective voice of the community just like the
established organizations such as CAIR, ISNA, ICNA and
MPAC who have grassroots contacts with the community in
contrast to the PMU academia, activists or their
millionaire supporters who not enjoy this privilege.
This discussion
leads us to the basic question, who is a moderate or
progressive Muslim? Moderation is a quality of being
moderate and avoiding extremes. American Heritage
dictionary defines a moderate “one who holds or
champions moderate views or opinions, especially in
politics or religion.” However, these days apparently
the title of "moderate Muslim" is only reserved for
those who do not question the U.S. foreign policy in the
Muslim world and openly abandon Islam's beliefs and
malign its scripture.
If this is not the
case then what was the reason to revoke visa of the
renowned Swiss Muslim intellectual, Professor Tariq
Ramadan, who was supposed to begin teaching at the Notre
Dame University this fall. It looks that his
unwillingness to deny Islam as his identity is his
crime. He made this point abundantly clear when he
addressed Dec 2 interfaith conference in Prague
sponsored by former Czech president Vaclav Havel: “I'm a
European Muslim; I'm a Western Muslim. So it's obvious
that when you speak like this you will have
traditionalists and literalists saying that you are
betraying the religion. So it is controversial within
the religious community. But at the same time, I'm still
too much Muslim for some Europeans and some Americans.”
Professor Ramadan
is a scholar recognized throughout the world for his
labors on behalf of interfaith understanding and the
building of peace as evidenced in his most recent book,
"Western Muslims and the Future of Islam," in which he
says: A silent revolution is sweeping Islamic
communities in the West, as Muslims actively seek ways
to live in harmony with their faith within a Western
context. French, English, German, and American
Muslims--women as well as men--are reshaping their
religion into one that is faithful to the principles of
Islam, dressed in European and American cultures, and
definitively rooted in Western societies.
So, the question
remains unanswered, who is a moderate Muslim?
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