Al-Muhajabah Global

President Obama's speech in Cairo this morning covered an amazing amount of ground. Beyond the message that Obama was directly conveying, he also communicated a message through the Islamic citations and allusions that he made in his speech. Many of these may not be familiar to non-Muslims so in this post, I provide links to references where you can learn more.

Overall, Obama displayed a deep knowledge of Islamic scripture, history, and views, and that in itself conveys his respect far more than just saying "I respect Islam and Muslims". I think this will be appreciated by many Muslims, even if they do not agree with the positions he took.

As the Holy Koran tells us, "Be conscious of God and speak always the truth."

This is from Surah al-Ahzab, verse 70. The Arabic text of this verse is Ya ayyuha alladhina amanu ittaqu Allaha wa qulu qawlan sadidan. The phrase ittaqu Allaha is often translated as "fear God" but the noun form taqwa really refers to an awareness or consciousness of God's presence, hence Obama's rendering.

That's why the United States government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab and to punish those who would deny it.

Here, Obama alludes to the case of Nashala Hearn, an Oklahoma schoolgirl who was prohibited from wearing her headscarf (hijab) to school. As detailed on the White House blog, the U.S. Department of Justice went to court to fight for Nashala's right to express her religion. I covered this case in 2003 and 2004.

The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent it is as if he has killed all mankind. And the Holy Koran also says whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind.

This is Surah al-Ma'ida, verse 32, a verse that I and many other Muslims have cited again and again to remind what Islam actually teaches about killing the innocent (see also here).

Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and it does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America's founding. This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia. It's a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end. It is a sign neither of courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That's not how moral authority is claimed; that's how it is surrendered.

I have posted a number of times about Islamic non-violence movements. The reference to South Asia is most likely an allusion to Bacha Khan, who was a contemporary of Gandhi and founder of a 100,000-strong Islamic non-violence movement in India.

I also thought Obama's evocation of the non-violent struggle of African-Americans against slavery and segregation was very powerful.

All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of the three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, peace be upon them, joined in prayer.

Here, Obama refers to Isra and Mi'raj, the miraculous night journey taken by the Prophet Muhammad (sAas), in which he traveled to Jerusalem and ascended into the heavens. As Obama mentions, as part of this journey, the Prophet met and prayed with both Moses and Jesus (sAas). This is a wonderful story, and Wikipedia has links to a number of resources for further reading.

Obama also uses the standard invocation "peace be upon them" (in Arabic, sal'Allahu alayhi wa sallam, abbreviated sAas as above) that Muslims use whenever referring to God's prophets, not just the Prophet Muhammad. Whenever Muslims mention Jesus or Moses (holy to Christianity and Judaism, respectively), their names are always followed by invoking peace upon them.

Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition.

Here Obama refers to Muslim Spain. At a time when medieval Europe was often expelling Jews, Andalusia welcomed them. You can read more about Jews under Islamic rule from Jewish sources here.

The Holy Koran tells us: "O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another."

This is Surah al-Hujurat, verse 13, which is one of the more beautiful verses of the Quran, in my opinion. Rather than our differences being something we should fear, they are a gift from God to allow us to learn and grow.


What really struck me about all these citations and allusions is that they are all things that I, as a Muslim, would have mentioned and used to support what I was saying. It's obvious that Obama took a lot of time to talk to those learned in Islam and really listened to what they told him. Mashallah.

P.S. No, I did not intend for this to survive only as an Obama blog. But he keeps making it necessary for me to come back and post!

P.P.S. Thanks for the link, Al! Visitors from The Field, feel free to look around, and browse my older posts, although the blog is no longer active and comments have been shut down. I hope that you find this post of value to you and perhaps other posts on the blog as well.

Continue reading "a guide to the Islamic citations and allusions in Obama's Cairo speech" »

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Returning briefly from the dead...

As long-time readers of this blog know, I supported Kucinich in 2004 and have been supporting him this year as well, though not as actively (in part because I was unemployed last time around, but now my work schedule keeps me busy). This has always been because I agree with his positions and I want them to be part of the debate, so as to encourage other Democrats to move in that direction.

I'm realistic enough to know that he's not going to win, in part because too many people who otherwise agree with him don't bother to support him at all thinking he can't win (thus it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy). So even while supporting Kucinich, I continue to look at the leading candidates to decide which, if any, of them I think would be the best nominee for the Democrats.

In 2004, I wasn't very inspired by any of the candidates. And while this year's race is better in many ways, I was still holding back. I've liked a lot of what I've seen about Obama - and to be completely honest, every time the Republicans try to make a smear out of claiming he's Muslim, that makes me support him more. But I've also had reservations about his positions on some issues and that held me back.

However, after watching his win in Iowa and the sense of hope it's given so many people, I've decided to support him over Clinton and Edwards as far as he can go. I want to see our country be bold enough to choose him over the Clinton machine, to look forward instead of back.

Because of the way the caucus system works, I still plan to caucus for Kucinich here in Washinton on February 9, to help him stay in the race and hopefully get a few delegates so he can participate at the convention and represent his issues. But if/when he's not viable (based on my experience from 2004, this will be at the district rather than precinct level because I'll probably be one of only a handful of people from my precinct) then I'll switch to Obama and I'll definitely be rooting for Obama in New Hampshire and other races.

And hopefully, if Obama gets the nomination he will choose a great running mate to make the Democrats really solid on the all the issues!

Update 1/24/08: Since Kucinich has withdrawn from the race, I will support Obama from here on out and caucus for him on February 9.

Continue reading "Barack Obama" »

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The former head of the British Army has attacked US postwar policy, calling it "intellectually bankrupt".

General Sir Mike Jackson, who headed the army during the war in Iraq, described as "nonsensical" the claim by the former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that US forces "don't do nation-building". He has also hit back at suggestions that British forces had failed in Basra.

Mr Rumsfeld was "one of the most responsible for the current situation in Iraq," Gen Jackson says in his autobiography, Soldier. He describes Washington's approach to fighting global terrorism as "inadequate" for relying on military power over diplomacy and nation-building. (link)

Tell on!

Continue reading "British army chief attacks US as 'intellectually bankrupt' over Iraq" »

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I'm taking about an inability to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we are our brother's keeper; we are our sister's keeper; that, in the words of Dr. King, we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny.

We have an empathy deficit when we're still sending our children down corridors of shame - schools in the forgotten corners of America where the color of your skin still affects the content of your education.

We have a deficit when CEOs are making more in ten minutes than some workers make in ten months; when families lose their homes so that lenders make a profit; when mothers can't afford a doctor when their children get sick.

We have a deficit in this country when there is Scooter Libby justice for some and Jena justice for others; when our children see nooses hanging from a schoolyard tree today, in the present, in the twenty-first century.

We have a deficit when homeless veterans sleep on the streets of our cities; when innocents are slaughtered in the deserts of Darfur; when young Americans serve tour after tour of duty in a war that should've never been authorized and never been waged.

And we have a deficit when it takes a breach in our levees to reveal a breach in our compassion; when it takes a terrible storm to reveal the hungry that God calls on us to feed; the sick He calls on us to care for; the least of these He commands that we treat as our own. (link)

This is a beautiful and also powerful speech.

Continue reading "The Great Need of the Hour" »

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Ramadan has begun with the fasting starting tomorrow morning at dawn.

Ramadan mubarak! May our fasting and prayers and other worship this month be pleasing to Allah. May He make it easy for us and strengthen us by it.

Continue reading "Ramadan mubarak!" »

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Eid mubarak! Taqabbala Allahu minna wa minkum. (Happy Eid! May Allah accept from us and from you).

Continue reading "Eid mubarak!" »

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For the sixth year running, a tribute to some of the most important parts of Dr. King's legacy, which are usually overlooked.

Here are some highlights of a speech given by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1967. The speech is far too long for me to post here (even the excerpts that I've selected are quite long), but you can read it in its entirety here. I think Dr. King's words speak very eloquently to our situation today.

"A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam. The truth of these words is beyond doubt but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.

Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement well and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us...

...All the while the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and democracy -- and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us -- not their fellow Vietnamese --the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move or be destroyed by our bombs. So they go -- primarily women and children and the aged.

They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the hospitals, with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one "Vietcong"-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them -- mostly children. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children, degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers.

What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? What do they think as we test our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones?...

...What must they think of us in America when they realize that we permitted the repression and cruelty of Diem which helped to bring them into being as a resistance group in the south? What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? How can they believe in our integrity when now we speak of "aggression from the north" as if there were nothing more essential to the war? How can they trust us when now we charge them with violence after the murderous reign of Diem and charge them with violence while we pour every new weapon of death into their land? Surely we must understand their feelings even if we do not condone their actions. Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts...

...Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours...

...If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. It will become clear that our minimal expectation is to occupy it as an American colony and men will not refrain from thinking that our maximum hope is to goad China into a war so that we may bomb her nuclear installations. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horribly clumsy and deadly game we have decided to play.

The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways...

...Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken -- the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. n the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

Continue reading "A Time to Break Silence, by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr." »

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Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, The past isnt dead and buried. In fact, it isnt even past. We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still havent fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between todays black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of todays urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for ones family, contributed to the erosion of black families a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us. (link)

Obama hits it out of the park again. In my opinion, he didn't need to give this speech and shouldn't have had to. He is running for president not for chief spokesman on race in America. But the moment came and he seized it. This is why I support him so strongly.

Continue reading "A more perfect union" »

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Continue reading "Yes!" »

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I am serving as a judge for the Brass Crescent Awards this year.


What are the Brass Crescent Awards? They are named for the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights. Today, the Islamsphere is forging a new synthesis of Islam and modernity, and is the intellectual heir to the traditions of philosophy and learning that was once the hallmark of Islamic civilization - a heritage scarcely recognizable today in the Islamic world after a century's ravages of colonialism, tyrants, and religious fundamentalism. We believe that Islam transcends history, and we are forging history anew for tomorrow's Islam. These awards are a means to honor ourselves and celebrate our nascent community, and promote its growth.

The categories this year are as follows:

BEST BLOG: This category honors the most indispensable, Muslim-authored blog there is. Period.

BEST WRITER: Who is the most stimulating, insightful, and philosophically wise among us? This category is intended to highlight a blogger who may not post daily, but when they do post, they really make an impact.

BEST NON-MUSLIM BLOG: Which blog writen by a non-Muslim is most respectful of Islam and seeks genuine dialogue with Muslims?

BEST BLOG DESIGN: Which blog has the most aesthetically pleasing site design, appealing to the eye, evoking Islamic themes, and/or facilitating debate and discussion?

BEST POST OR SERIES: Which single post or group of posts in the Islamsphere was the most original and important, above all the others?

BEST FEMALE BLOG: The woman's voice in Islam is equal to the man's, and in the Islamsphere we seek to make sure the female perspective is highlighted and given its rightful due. Which Muslim woman's blog has done the most to explore the role that women play within Islam and society?

BEST NEW BLOG: Which blog is a true diamond in the rough, one that everyone should be reading but who most just haven't heard of (yet)?

BEST GROUP BLOG: Which multiple group blog in the Islamsphere has the best diversity of writers and the most interesting debate on Muslim issues?

BEST HUMOR BLOG: Which blog gets their point across by using humor in the most effective way?

BEST MIDDLE EAST/AFRICAN, EUROPEAN, SOUTH ASIAN, AND ASIAN BLOGGERS: The Islamsphere is truly a global phenomenon. In Iraq, despite the chaos and uncertainty, there is a sea change of free speech and expression, the vanguard of which are blogs. There are also bloggers in India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Palestine, Jordan, and most other countries that host Muslims, all of whom have their own perspectives on faith, culture, and politics.

The nominations phase for all 13 categories is now underway, so head over and start nominating your favorite blogs now!

Note, that the Awards methodology is slightly different this year:

1. Nomination phase (Wed Oct 1 - Fri Oct 24). Anyone with a valid email address may nominate blogs to appropriate categories. Blogs may only be nominated once for any given category. We also encourage you to nominate your own blog!

2. Panel phase (Fri Oct 24th to Fri Nov 7th). The top nominees in each category will be forwarded to the judges' panel, who will review the nominees and select the finalists.

3. Voting phase (Fri Nov 7 to Fri Dec 1).

4. Winners will be announced at brasscrescent.org around Eid ul-Adha.

Continue reading "Brass Crescent Awards" »

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No, not for endorsing Obama for president. For this:

And it is permitted to be said such things as, "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, "He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists." This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

Continue reading "thank you, Colin Powell" »

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What a night! What a victory! An historic day for our nation, with the first African-American presidential nominee of a major party. An incredible victory for Obama's insurgent campaign against the ultimate Democratic party machine (the Clinton campaign). And the first time a candidate I supported has actually won the nomination! :D

Truly a night to remember. Tomorrow (technically, later today :p ) the next stage of the fight begins, but for now a time to savor.

God willing, McCain is toast.

Continue reading "Yes, we can!" »

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During the past week, people at McCain-Palin campaign events have shouted things like terrorist, "Kill him" (again, investigated by the Secret Servce!), treason, "Off with his head", socialist hooligan, and terrorist-lover and killer about Obama. They've shouted racial epithets at African American media personnel and people have shouted "Bomb Obama" at other Republican events. See also these people talking to a blogger journalist and here; another report features McCain field staff and volunteers.

On Friday, McCain briefly tried to tone things down but on Saturday when civil rights hero John Lewis warned McCain that he was playing with fire, McCain went back on the defensive (the people who attend his events are just "hardworking Americans").

Frank Rich explains it very well:

What makes them different, and what has pumped up the Weimar-like rage at McCain-Palin rallies, is the violent escalation in rhetoric, especially (though not exclusively) by Palin. Obama "launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist." He is "palling around with terrorists" (note the plural noun). Obama is "not a man who sees America the way you and I see America." Wielding a wildly out-of-context Obama quote, Palin slurs him as an enemy of American troops.By the time McCain asks the crowd "Who is the real Barack Obama?" it's no surprise that someone cries out "Terrorist!" The rhetorical conflation of Obama with terrorism is complete. It is stoked further by the repeated invocation of Obama's middle name by surrogates introducing McCain and Palin at these rallies. This sleight of hand at once synchronizes with the poisonous Obama-is-a-Muslim e-mail blasts and shifts the brand of terrorism from Ayers's Vietnam-era variety to the radical Islamic threats of today.

Blogger Greg Sargent has similar thoughts. I do believe that the constant association of Obama (stressing his Muslim-sounding name) with words like "terrorist" and insinuations that he hates America leads inevitably to what we are seeing. The claim about Ayers is thin, but it allows this linkage and I can only believe that this is why McCain and Palin are using it.

I am scared for Obama's safety, I would be scared as someone who is visibly Muslim by my dress to go near a McCain rally, and I am scared that nutcases may also attack Obama offices or Obama supporters because they are stoked up by this rhetoric.

Senator McCain and Governor Palin, I call on you to take down your Ayers ads and stop the rhetoric that claims Senator Obama does not love America. People are scared right now because of the financial and economic crisis and many may be looking for someone to blame. Do not stand by when they take African Americans, Muslims, Arab Americans, or other racial and religious minorities as scapegoats. Stand up against it. All people of conscience should do so.

Continue reading "kind of scary" »

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VOTE

Continue reading "just do it!" »

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The president orders the detention facilities at Guantanamo shut down, and bans torture.



I am very proud that Obama is president and that I voted for him, and I am proud of America for electing him.

Update: Here are the key executive orders - closing Guantanamo, ending enemy combatant status, banning torture, shutting down CIA black sites, and stopping extraordinary rendition, and providing an overall review of the entire detention policy process. Read them and rejoice.

Continue reading "a proud day" »

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