The Murmur of Concerned Muslim Voices

One can only hope that in the aftermath of Lubna Ahmed Hussein’s trial, and now the dropping of charges against Chansa Kabwela in Zambia, that moderate Muslims find their voices.

At the risk of being melodramatic — which is a trait that I use effectively at times —  the future of the world lies in moderate Muslims — not only finding their voices, but using words and deeds to articulate their vision of a just world for the 22nd century.

Without moderate-based activism among Muslims, the world will be unrecognizable, if it exists at all.

Fundamentalism is deadly — especially for women — under any guise. I criticized the Jewish position this morning, in my defense of Queen Rania and the Catholic Church last evening in Palin and the Patriarchy: Good Girls Triumph Don’t They?

In recent webwide comments I’ve tried to explain that I’m not a Muslim bigot, although religious fundamentalism scares the heck out of me, no matter what god is in charge.

Post Lubna Hussein, as the trouser ban takes effect in Indonesia’s West Aceh on Jan. 1, 2010, there’s a small but steady voice of concerned political awareness, taking hold among moderate Muslims in Indonesia and elsewhere.

Muslims offer Idul Fitri prayers at the Baiturrahman mosque in Banda Aceh. (Photo: Fanny Octavianus, Antara) via thejakartaglobe.comJust as women in Sudan enjoyed a flowering of rights in the 1970s and 1980s, only to lose them to the tune of over 40,000 floggings a year for indecency, moderate women and men in Indonesia acknowledge that fundamentalist forces will roll through their country, if thoughtful, articulate moderates don’t take action.

To date, it seems that any criticism of Islam has made one a traitor to the religion. The total focus as been Islamic xenophobia in the West, based on the assumption that we got what we’ve deserved on Sept. 11 and shame on us for our imperialist ways.

All concerns about women’s rights and putting more women in burqas must be a self-serving, masked attack on Islam, launched by Western women, in my personal situation. This idea remains the prevailing view — and is undoubedly true in some cases.

This is not my agenda.

Without taking sides with the West, a few Middle Eastern writers and newspapers are expressing concern that a trouser ban is coming to their city soon. Flogging, too, perhaps.

I post these article here in our trouser girls channel and today I will add another, written by Terry Lacey: Crisis in Islamic Education.

Lacey writes: 

Sharia law does not have to be brutal, misogynistic, stupid or reactionary but it is increasingly so perceived by Westerners, made worse by the ill-advised public statements by those who seem unaware of the practices in the diversity of the Umma (the global Muslim community).

To emulate a small minority of Arabs does not mean you are copying prevailing Arab beliefs and practice. This only results in simplistic Arab-bashing headlines.

To copy the practices of backward tribal groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan does not make sense in modern Indonesia nor does it make good Muslims.

Proper modern religious conservatives are clearly different from this and their views should be respected, but the genuinely devout are likely to want to avoid sensationalism.

But such political opportunists seeking fame and fortune in Indonesia have to be got under control before they do more serious damage.

They will undermine development, economic prosperity and investment. They will provoke a civil rights movement against them.

The Ministry of Religious Affairs and the largest Muslim mass organizations in Indonesia, the Nahdatul Ulama and the Muhammadiah seem to have lost control of this wave of anarchy. Yet this usurps their leadership and authority.

In writing about international cooperation and understanding, Terry Lacey is a clear, articulate voice in a quiet Muslim landscape of “hear no evil; see no evil”. 

I hope that essays like this one encourage others to articulate a go-forward strategy for how Muslims will choose to deal with the forces of fundamentalism.

It’s a fact that genuinely devout Muslims want to avoid the sensationalism of Internet-based shoutdowns and drama like we saw on the streets of Khartoum, where Lubna and other women were called “prostitutes”, walking towards the courtroom.

American women are prostitutes, too, in the eyes of Christian fundamentalists and many Orthodox Jews, too.  Remember, I was told by a Muslim man in Brooklyn — actually he told my lover, choosing not to speak to me — that he was taking me to a mosque to teach me how to dress properly.

New restrictions have been passed on Muslim women living under Jamiat laws in India.Watching the unfolding of this Islamic women’s rights drama around the world makes me very nervous for women.

Writing yesterday about the resolutions passed by India’s Jamiat to order Muslim women to wear burqas, thereby saving the honor and modesty of men, who “will never recover from the disrepute”, I find a small measure of hope in essays like this one.

As mullahs argue that four thousand years of living a certain way confirm that we are fools for wanting to change the status quo, Lacey argues that “To copy the practices of backward tribal groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan does not make sense in modern Indonesia nor does it make good Mulims.” Anne