"Violence is the Last Refuge of the Incompetent"

Excerpts from an interview with Hamza Yusuf Hanson on PBS:

"Listen, hurricanes are a much greater threat to us right now. Katrina did much more damage than anything the terrorists could ever put together."

"Yeah, there's nuclear weapons are out there and that certainly is a concern. That's the job of these intelligence people to stop that, right? But stop making us all live in fear and telling us about orange and red levels. All that nonsense just simply has to stop. We need to calm down and think at a deeper level. People can't think when their minds are clouded with fear."

"A democracy is predicated on an educated citizenry. You cannot have a democracy with people that are more interested in what Nicole Kidman is doing or whoever the latest fashion model is. If that's your interest, democracy can't survive. You also have corporate interests here."

"How do you racially profile terrorists when 90percent of the world falls into that? Mexicans look like Arabs, for God's sake, and anybody can change their name. I mean Abdullah can change his name to Eduardo. It's not going to be difficult, if they're clever. So how do you profile people?"

"So we have real concerns. You have to go to a deeper level. Henry David Thoreau said for every thousand people hacking away at the branches of evil, there's only one person hacking away at the roots of evil. I really think we need to go to a deeper level and look at what the root of this situation is. There are a lot of people prevaricating out there, who just don't want to deal with the "why" question."

"People have to be exposed to Muslims, just experience Muslims; talk to them. Reach out, read about Islam, try to find out about it. There are 20,000 Muslim physicians in the United States, Americans putting their lives in the hands of Muslims every day. You're going under and the anesthesiologist is a Muslim, right? He's looking out for you. He doesn't want you to die in that operation because you're an infidel. He's doing his job. As is your pediatrician who's trying to heal your child. And the mechanic who's fixing your car?"

Click here for the complete interivew.

Family Memories?

These days I am fascinated by the workings of old, handed-down, memories. I was reading somewhere for a project on Sufism in America, how African American Islam and its "explosion" in the '70s had something to do with the fact that some of the founding fathers, Elijah Mohammad and Noble Drew Ali, all had family memories of Islam.

Family memories?

A personal example from my own family: My family is Bengali Muslim. But my maternal grandparents are from parts of what's today Bangladesh (Bikrampur/Vikrampura) where many Hindu kingdoms flourished. And we know that many of maternal ancestors were Hindus, not so long ago either.

I recall childhood memories of my grandmother's overwhelming knowledge of various Hindu rituals local to Vikrampura. She had memories of her mother (Jajabor's great grandmother), sticking leaves between pages of books to call upon the goddess Saraswati and her blessings, although she was Muslim. Of course, we all know about Bengal's syncretic Muslim past in which local Hindu-Buddhist and Muslim traditions intermingled freely.

My mother is also acutely aware of such aspects of our ancestral past. I, myself, will probably continue to hand down the baton of such family memories and conversations.

The idea that a conversation can survive four or five generations may ring true, what may appear less obvious is the idea that the proliferation of Islam among African Americans in the 1970s, had much to do with family memories of Muslim slaves brought over from the African continent by the British centuries earlier.

Both Elijah and Drew Ali's ancestors were slaves. But they worked in plantations on the sea-coast islands of Georgia and South Carolina. In these predominantly sugar and rice plantations, slaves outnumbered slave-masters by much, and a degree of cultural autonomy was possible, enabling the Islam that came from Africa to America to survive and its memories linger across generations.

Don't know how many of you ran into the story of Mayor Ellis recently. I was intrigued to see how this sort of reawakening of very old and inactive traditions still happens. Georgian Mayor , Jack Ellis, who converted to Islam, spoke of "family memories" as he explains his recent conversion to Islam.

NYTimes on Ramadan: Islam in a Secular World III

So I can't make up my mind about New York Times. Of course, I can't expect a creature from the jungle that is American media to settle in completely with my Weltanschauung. But I have to say that, for the most part, I enjoyed Ian Buruma's piece on Tariq Ramadan. Although, it did seem at times, Buruma was looking for the fanatic in Ramadan and is surprised he doesn't find one.

Of Egyptian parentage, and Swiss upbringing, and a sound training in Western and Islamic philosophy, Ramadan feels he is in a position to help Western Muslims and non-Muslims negotiate with each other. Of course, this thoughts are valuable for people in any part of the world where secular modernity and Muslims are trying to figure each other out.

Ramadan is calling on Muslims to integrate into Western society. But this is a disciplined integration he foresees. He is calling on Muslims to respect the state that gives them citizenship and the secular law that protects them. But while being good Western citizens, Ramadan is also asking Muslims to adhere to traditionalist principles. He wishes more people critiqued (critique means to de-limit, not oppose) the sacred cows that are free speech, secularism and such. Explaining his criticism of a Voltaire play in Geneva called “Fanaticism, or Mahomet the Prophet," he has to say, "The play would be another brick in the edifice of hatred and rejection.”

Jajabor wishes more people approached "free speech" with the necessary nuance that Ramadan seems to. To hate on an already beleaguered community, where the end is nothing but to provoke, is a cannibalization of freespeech ideals. The Jyllands-Posten bakwas is a case not very different.

Buruma's piece offers rare moments of insight into the personality of an otherwise very mysterious man. Despite his religiosity, he wrote his PhD thesis on Nietzsche the God-killer. Asked if he ever experienced doubts himself, Ramadan says, "Doubts about God, no...But questions, yes."

I had the good fortune of meeting Mr. Ramadan when he came to my college to give a talk. While I spoke with him at dinner, I was struck by his battle-weariness. It was clear he had lived a life of negotiating through crests of misunderstandings. He is wont to a life of surfing with aliens. Westerners rejected him for his familial links to Hassan Al-Banna's Muslim Brotherhood (most recently the State Dept denied him a visa for donating money to groups linked to groups linked to groups the Dept finds unsavory). Also, more conservative Muslims disapprove of Ramadan's disciplined integration. Middle-paths were never meant to be easy.

Seeing Ourselves

“Where are you frrrom??” is a common question asked of me by taxi drivers in the city. The next question that often follows: “Are you Muslim??” For some reason, this usually sends my eyes darting searchingly for their IDs, which are on display above them. This lets me know that they are Muslim.

Although by now I should be accustomed to this sort of interrogation, both the direct verbal form by cab drivers, and occasionally by restaurant waiters, as well as the indirect, visual form by airport officials when they see my last name (and right before X-tra screening), the question still jolts my senses.

Some of us, who relish living in a society organized around liberal principles do not enjoy being queried in this manner by utter strangers. Coming from acquaintances, it may be a different matter. For a while I assumed that the source of my discomfort was in the fact that there is a certain tone of judgement in the way the query is conducted. It may be relevant to note here that I don’t wear hijab.

But my unease is wrapped in some other feelings that, for a while, I couldn’t quite get to.

In his recent book about identity politics, Amartya Sen remarkably arrived at the root of these feelings. He explained how the “solitarist approach” to human identity, where individuals are seen as members of only one group, can often lead to bewilderment.

“Bewildered.” The word that most accurately describes my status in these situations.

Sen’s view is that we are happiest when the myriad identities within us are recognized. (He also goes on wonderfully about how the narrow perception and manipulation of identity can be used to instigate violence etc etc etc, but this is not a book review.)

Sen was in Washington last October. I sat in awe as he spoke about how communitarian notions of identity have sometimes corrupted policy, and diminished the scope for individual freedom. Each of his words rang true to me. They reminded me of scenes from my daily life, where at different times I wanted to be different things, but was assigned…some other identity.

Last week, in a cab somewhere between McPherson Square and Dupont Circle I found myself being pointedly asked again by the driver: “Are you Muslim?” I glanced at his dubious-looking brows in the rearview mirror for a second before replying: “Yes.”

He continued for a little while….something about our relationship with Allah and our “deen”. At that time I went from being “The Muslim Woman” to “The Woman Looking for Change in her Wallet” so I was only half-listening. When we reached our destination he turned around in his seat, looked me squarely in the eyes and concluded: “Also, please make sure you marry a Muslim man.”