Published in the Florida Times Union, Feb 7, 2021.

by Parvez Ahmed

When terrorists claiming to act in the name of my faith attacked the homeland on Sept. 11, 2001, Muslims in America were not only targeted for surveillance, they were also repeatedly asked to condemn terrorism even when the only thing they shared with the terrorists was their religion. Frenzied protests were mounted when a group of Muslims wanted to build a spiritual community center not far from the World Trade Towers.

At a personal level, I recall with pain, my own saga going through the process of being confirmed as a Human Rights Commissioner for the city of Jacksonville. City Council members grilled me on “Islamic” terrorism and cared little about my views on human rights. During the confirmation hearing one Republican council member went as far as asking me to pray to “my God” before voting against me.

Despite having no material connections to any terrorists, many Muslims were hounded by the media, their loyalty questioned in public and frequently discriminated at work. The frenzy reached its peak when candidate Donald J. Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the U.S. and followed up with his first executive action to essentially criminalize my faith by enacting a travel ban from several Muslim majority countries. The U.S. Supreme Court later upheld a watered-down version of this discriminatory policy. Post 9-11 realities, from government-sanctioned detentions at airports to privately ginned up “protests” by hate groups, have left a deep scar in ways unimaginable. All this in the name of national security.

Fast forward to the Capitol attacks on Jan. 6. The rioters, far from being an impromptu flash mob, were incited by repeated assertions of a big lie that the presidential election was stolen. They planned in plain view to storm the Capitol. They wanted to kill or kidnap the next two in the line of succession to the President – Trump’s own Vice President and the Democratic Speaker of the House. A report released in October 2020 concluded that white supremacist groups pose a grave danger to the nation. And yet no one is asking all elected Republican officials to put out clear statements of condemnations. No one is demanding that Republican voters explain why their side is aiding and abetting terrorism. No security agency is engaged in surveillance of Republicans.

Despite my trauma of being harassed and surveilled, I am not advocating for its reciprocation. I am weary of additional intrusive laws against domestic terrorism that could lead to stereotyping and when the inevitable abuses happen, Black and Brown communities will be its primary victims. However, it is hard to miss the contrast in the treatment of Muslims versus Republicans, both Americans.

That White perpetrators of terrorism are being treated differently than Black or Brown perpetrators, is no accident of history. This is the outcome of our caste-based system so graphically and eloquently outlined in Isabel Wilkerson’s bestseller “Caste – The Origins of Our Discontents.”

The long arc of American history is not just the rosy stories we tell ourselves about the triumphs of justice but the stories we hate to admit – the perpetuation of our caste-based society where “a fixed and embedded ranking of human value” is based on, “the presumed supremacy of one group against the presumed inferiority of other groups on the basis of ancestry and often immutable traits.”

If not the presumed superiority, what explains the hypocrisy in the way terrorism committed by Muslims is distinguished from terrorism committed by Whites who responded to the incitement of a Republican President? It appears that once again as a society we are failing to hold White supremacy accountable for its sordid history of violence and sedition.

Parvez Ahmed is Director for Diversity and Inclusion and Professor of Finance at UNF’s Coggin College of Business. His views are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of UNF or the Coggin College of Business.
 
You can read more about the author here.

Follow on Twitter: www.twitter.com/parvezahmed

Mourners gathering for a prayer vigil for the nine martyrs killed at Charleston’s Mother Emanuel Church sang “We Shall Overcome.” Watching the video, I felt being transported to the Morris Brown AME Church, where this vigil was being held. It was hard to hold back the tears. My heart believes that we shall indeed overcome yet another senseless tragedy. But my head says, we will not. Because too many of my fellow Americans live in denial.

The Wall Street Journal proclaimed that while the shooting at the Mother Emanuel bore striking resemblance to the 1963 bombings at the Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, the two are different because, “Today the system and philosophy of institutionalized racism identified by Dr. King no longer exists.” No mention of the institutional racism that the Confederate flag perpetuates as it continues to fly full-mast on the grounds of the Capital building in South Carolina. Republican presidential contender and former Florida governor, Jeb Bush said, “I don’t know what was on the mind” of the killer despite the fact that the killer was clear about his animus for black people. Before brutally killing his innocent victims he reportedly accused them of the age-old racist canard, “You rape our women, and you’re taking over the country.” Fox News has been tying themselves into knots trying to correlate the Charleston killings to an attack on Christianity, brushing aside the ugly racism that undergirds this attack.

Two days before Charleston, The New York Times ran an article by Charles Kurzman of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and David Schanzer from the Duke University. They conducted a survey of 382 law enforcement agencies. Nearly 3 out of 4 respondents reported “anti-government extremism as one of the top three terrorist threats in their jurisdiction.” The article concluded, “radicalization from the Middle East was a concern, but not as dangerous as radicalization among right-wing extremists.” And yet virtually no official used the T-word when describing the actions of Dylann Roof. This led Anthea Butler from the University of Pennsylvania to ask in the Washington Post, “Shooters of color are called ‘terrorists’ and ‘thugs.’ Why are white shooters called ‘mentally ill’?”

Imagine for a moment that the killer was a Muslim. The media and officials would not have hesitated to call the attack Islamic terrorism, even if there was no link to the Islam practiced by the overwhelming majority of peaceful Muslims. And yet in this case, virtually no one has raised the question — where did Dylann Roof learn his virulent form of racism? No one is rushing to uncover what church he attended nor who he associated with. Racism is not innate. It is learned and inculcated. While questions have abounded about how and why Muslim youth are being radicalized, very little research is available about the roots of right-wing radicalization. Mental illness does not explain the viciousness nor the propensity of mass shooters.

A May New York Times/CBS poll found 61 percent of Americans saying race relations are generally bad now. This is up from 38 percent just two months ago. Police shootings have been a major contributor to this change in attitude. A new study shows that African Americans now rank race relations as the most important issue facing the country, ironically in the era of a black president. Far from being post-racial, the election of an African American to the highest office in the land, has made race relations worse. The role played by media, particularly right-leaning, in questioning the legitimacy of Obama, from doubts about his religion to his place of birth, have undeniably played a role in creating a perception among certain segments that a black “alien” is “taking over” our country and “patriots” need to take America back. A sentiment that is not hard to notice in the “Take America Back” stickers on the back of pickups and in the words from the killer’s mouth in Charleston.

It is in every community’s interest to improve race relations. It is not only the right thing to do but also essential to fostering a society where shared prosperity is the norm, not the exception. It may also be crucial in giving our country the moral edge in global affairs. Unfortunately, however, Sunday remains the most segregated day in the U.S., while Friday afternoons are the most segregated hour in my Muslim community. In most cities, African American Muslims congregate at inner city mosques, which often predate the establishment of mosques by immigrant Muslims, but are generally shunned by the more prosperous and thus remain in poor financial conditions. During this Friday’s service at my immigrant run Islamic Center, not a word was mentioned about Charleston, although many major Muslim civic organizations did express their condolences and solidarity.

A casual canvass of the boards of Islamic centers and Islamic civic institutions will show that representation of African Americans in positions of leadership does not measure up to the fact that 23 percent of American Muslims identify themselves as black. Such lack of representation is pervasive across all American institutions. Not practicing pluralism in our institutional governance and allowing our dinner table conversations to stereotype people of other races and religions, serves as the genesis of our troubles. All of us need to do better. Only then we shall indeed overcome.

Islamists, defined by AP as those who favor, “reordering government and society in accordance with laws prescribed by Islam,” view their interpretation of Islam as Islamic, often to the exclusion of other point of views. In the West, an amalgam of ideologues, from the far-right conservatives to the libertarian atheists, also insist that any and all bad action by Muslims are derived from Islam and thus Islamic. Several years ago, I wrote an article questioning the authenticity of using the label “Islamic” to characterize otherwise secular functions such as politics, art or finance. Labels such as, Islamic Republic, Islamic Finance, or Islamic State, are an exercise in hubris arrogantly suggesting that whatever takes place under such banners is sanctioned by Islam. Islamic Finance, for example, may reflect certain values of Islam, but in practice it often violates the spirit of Islam, if not its letter.

The Arabic for “Islamic” is “Islamiyyah,” a word that is not found in the Quran. When opining on the permissibility or the impermissibility of any action, classical scholars of Islam eschewed using “Islamic” or “un-Islamic” as a label. They often opted for legalistic terms such as “valid”, “accepted”, and “allowable” to determine Islamicity. This legal paradigm allowed for nuances and contextualization. For example, drinking alcohol is impermissible in Islam but if life depended on its consumption then an impermissible action becomes obligatory, as saving life takes precedence. Thus, the binary worldview of “Islamic” versus “un-Islamic,” does not find support in the sacred texts of Islam. Ironically, the proliferation of the label “Islamic” is traceable to the Islamist identity movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood or Jamaat-e-Islam, which sprang up in the post-colonial Muslim world.

In not labeling ISIS or ISIL as an “Islamic” group, President Obama was refusing to play into the narrative of the extremists, who are desperately trying to cloak their heinous actions with the legitimacy of Islam. To President Obama’s detractors, this was not viewed as either smart or strategic, but rather capitulation. If you cannot label the terrorists properly, how can you defeat them, so they howled? This argument over labels has distracted us from the real debate over ISIS – not what to call it but how to defeat it.

In a controversial article Atlantic’s Graeme Wood asserts that “The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic.” In the same article, Wood goes on to state that “nearly all” Muslims reject ISIS. How can something be “Islamic” if “nearly all” Muslims reject it? Wood’s main source to determine the religious authenticity of ISIS is Bernard Haykel, a Princeton scholar of Islam. The fact that Wood did not interview Muslim scholars of Islam to determine the authenticity of the “Islamic” credentials of ISIS, is a major omission. In addition, the only Muslims interviewed by Wood are fringe characters, such as the notorious British extremist Anjem Choudary, who despite claims that he motivated many British youth to join the Syrian war, remains free to give lengthy interviews to British newspapers and casually chat with American journalists in coffee shops. The Muslims interviewed by Wood who purportedly were providing the Islamic rationale behind ISIS, do not command any pulpit or lead any congregation. How can someone with no pulpit and no congregation become representatives of a religious faith practiced by 1.6 billion people?

Haykel notes that ISIS is reviving medieval interpretations of Islam. The fact that ISIS has to rely on anachronistic traditions of Islam certainly places them on the fringe of a modern-day Muslim, a fact that Wood does not adequately weigh when insisting that ISIS is Islamic. Thus ISIS is certainly not universally Islamic although it may rely on using words and images that suggests some tangential connection to Islam. ISIS is as much Islamic as the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda is Christian.

Despite glaring weaknesses in his article, Wood perceptively points out important differences between ISIS and its parent al-Qaeda. While al-Qaeda remains focused on hitting distant targets, such as the U.S., ISIS is mostly aiming to teach a lesson to “deviant” Muslims in the region and cleanse the land they control from any un-Islamic influence. In other words, ISIS is more of an existential threat to Muslims and Arabs in the region than they are to Western Europe and America. Moreover, ISIS unlike al-Qaeda espouses a brand of eschatology that favors an apocalyptic end-of-time clash between Islam and non-believers. Understanding this ideological underpinning is crucial, as Wood rightfully asserts. Thus, by avoiding characterizing ISIS as “Islamic,” President Obama is denying terrorists the comfort of thinking that the rest of the civilized world will indulge them in furthering their messianic visions. Any armed conflict with ISIS will have to be evaluated on the basis of security for the homeland and stability for the region, not on any messianic vision.

What ISIS wants is less important. They are a violent group that craves and revels in violence. No surprises. Defeating ISIS will depend more on understanding the factors that gave rise to them and less on how to label them. Without the US invasion of Iraq, there will be no ISIS. Without the disastrous post-war polices of de-Baathification, the Sunni minority would not have felt marginalized and gravitated towards their own Sunni devils (al-Qaeda) shunning the Shia devils, who as part of the government in Iraq, were just as brutal. Thus, the primary factor behind the rise of ISIS is a foreign occupation, a lesson that seems to be lost in the hullabaloo over how to label ISIS.

The second factor favoring the rise of ISIS is the repeated failures in governance. Without the failure of the Assad regime in Syria, there will be no space for ISIS to incubate. Not just Assad, but the dictators that have ruled across Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have by-and-large failed to provide their citizens with good life. The UN Arab Development Report makes it clear that most of the nation-states in the region failed to make a smooth transition towards the new world order, which required both strong national identities and adherence to international charters. The lack of clear national identities is the result of forced repression of “cultural, linguistic and religious heterogeneity” that was a fact of life in the region. Pluralism remains an idea too foreign across much of the MENA region. As successive iterations in socialism, capitalism, democracy, and authoritarianism failed (sometimes due to internal follies and sometimes due to undue interventions by America and its Western allies), a “medieval” and thus out-of-context interpretation of Islam began to gain currency among the dispossessed. Islam is the solution, sounded plausible. Lack of human development (economic, social and political) is the root cause of terrorism, a narrative too often ignored in discussions about terrorism in the name of Islam.

But can Islam itself be absolved? Islam like other ancient faith traditions is replete with multiple and even contradictory interpretations, particularly in the realm of social contracts. Taking stock of Islam’s history of development and progress, one can easily detect interpretations that range from accommodationist (accepting of differences) to separationist (positing Muslim exceptionalism and apartheid). The fact that a small band of thugs and criminals are banding towards a separationist camp, is hardly a revelation. However, the fact that thugs now control vast swaths of land and have the capacity to inflict so much violence cannot be trivialized either. Thus, Muslim scholars, leaders and activist should challenge ISIS on their core ideology and discredit their interpretations as invalid and out-of-context. So far, this has not been done at a sufficiently large scale to make any difference.

The Organization of Islamic Conference, a transnational body made up of 57 Muslim majority countries had instituted an observatory for Islamophobia but none to study and debunk extremism in the name of Islam. Muslim groups in the West routinely publish reports on Islamophobia, which is an important problem to be addressed, but so far have not researched and debunked the twisted ideology that undergirds the deranged violence of those who perpetrate violence in the name of Islam. While ISIS is producing slick magazines and engaging in impressive social media campaigns (one report suggested 45,000 Twitter accounts by ISIS supporters), the Muslim apex bodies either governmental such as the OIC or non-governmental civic advocacy groups such as CAIR in the US or MCB in UK have not developed any comparable campaign to discredit and marginalize the fallacious ideology that ISIS and their ilk propagate. Neither condemnations by Muslim groups nor dropping bombs by Western and Arab governments is sufficient to defeat ISIS. Security operations and statements of condemnations have to go hand in glove with exposing and discrediting the corrosive ideology being propagated by ISIS.

The debate over labels is thus a red-herring. The call for more condemnations by Muslims often masks ugly stereotyping presuming that Muslims have a monopoly on religious violence. Furthermore, increased militarization as solution is being tone deaf to the lessons from history. The real solution remains the same today as it was after 9/11 – reversing the downward spiral of human development across MENA. President Obama has asked Muslims to do more and certainly more can be done to debunk the ideology of ISIS. But President Obama has fallen short of laying out how he and his Western allies will nudge governments across MENA to speed up reforms that are necessary to give people in the region hope thus giving them less reason to buy into the messianic apocalyptic vision of ISIS.

I admire Charlie Hebdo for standing up against threats to free speech, but I am saddened to see them pay such a heavy price for their beliefs. Cartoons and satire, even the most provocative ones, remain vital for a healthy civil society. Only the deranged are threatened by them. Charlie Hebdo wanted to spread a little laughter, albeit in ways that are were often distasteful and provocative.

The killers in Paris did not nothing to defend Islam’s Prophet. They made the faith of 1.6 billion look like a murderous cult that views beheadings, bombings, kidnappings, and mass killings as religiously sanctioned response to grievances. They forget that the pen is mightier than the sword. The very Prophet whose name they are purportedly defending said, “The ink of the scholar is holier than the blood of the martyr.”

It is indeed heartening to witness Muslim leaders condemn the barbarism in Paris that killed the editor of Charlie Hebdo and several of its cartoonists. The killers also gunned down two policemen, one of whom happened to be Muslim. However, beyond the condemnations lurks a murky question: Why is some of the most egregious violence being repeatedly carried out in the name of Islam? Charlie Hebdo had offended Jews, Christians and a myriad of political leaders. Why did only Muslims lash out in such a violent manner? Certainly Muslims have no monopoly on deranged individuals.

Imams and Muslim leaders have usually responded by asserting that such killers do not represent “real” Islam. While a modicum of truth is indeed inherent in this argument, it does not illuminate the situation. While many acts of violence are being perpetrated in the name of other faiths, by actors ranging from Christian militias in Africa to Buddhist monks in Burma, the acts of violence in the name of Islam shock the conscience like no other. The gunning down of cartoonists, the beheading of journalists, the bombing of schools — all are headlines from just the last two months!

The rage sweeping through certain parts of the Muslim world and the Muslim diaspora is indeed rooted in the pervasive feeling of helplessness and hopelessness. This culture is exasperated by a sense of perpetual victimhood that undergirds the narrative of most Islamist groups. (Islamists are defined as those who use Islam as a fundamental pillar of their politics.) Psychologists define victimhood as a mentality that makes one feel powerless to affect their own circumstances, so for every wrong suffered, they blame and lash out at others. While many Islamists are engaged in peaceful political struggles, their fanning of victimhood often triggers violence, particularly among the marginalized victims.

The grievances of the Islamists and their militant counterparts overlap. Both groups dream about the establishment of a utopian society with Islam and Muslims at the top of the totem pole. However, the peaceful Islamists and the militants differ in their means of achieving this goal. Islamists such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami want to transform society into voluntarily accepting Shariah as the law of the land. Militants such as the Taliban, al-Qaeda and ISIS want to implement Shariah by brute force and feel no moral outrage at the idea of killing others to achieve their goals.

Even moderate Islamists such as the AKP in Turkey seem threatened by free speech. In recent months the Turkish government has jailed journalists, cartoonists and even children who allegedly mocked the president. In Saudi Arabia a blogger was publicly flogged for allegedly insulting Islam. In Pakistan blasphemy laws are used as tool of political oppression. Such intolerance often gives way to the violence of extremists as the distinction between peaceful advocacy and deranged violence is too easily blurred because not enough commitment has been made to the principles of nonviolence, neither by the state nor by the Islamists. Even amongst the Muslim diaspora in the West, free speech and freedom of religion struggle to find unequivocal acceptance.

It is ironic that the very week that this heinous political violence erupts in Paris also marks the release of the epic film Selma, which chronicles the transformative power of nonviolence in the face of state violence. The Prophet Muhammad urged his followers to never be afraid of learning something useful and beneficial, even from those who do not share their faith.

Therefore it is time to look beyond condemnation. It is time for Islamists to unequivocally embrace nonviolence and distance themselves from all forms of militancy in the name of Islam. It is time for repressive regimes such as Saudi Arabia to open up their societies to free speech and free exercise of religion. It is time for Muslim democracies such as Turkey to end their paranoid attacks on freedom of the press. It is time for Islamic republics like Pakistan to repeal their blasphemy laws. It is time for Muslim imams to lead their flocks in recognizing free speech and free exercise of religion as integral part of Islam. It is time for Western societies to stop asking Muslims what they feel every time radicals perpetrate yet another spectacular act of violence. Only then will “Je suis Charlie” find real meaning.

Recently a friend commented that even if the Muslim community engaged in a thousand interfaith dialogues, the headline that a Nigerian Muslim extremist group, Boko Haram, has abducted school girls threatening to sell them as slaves is enough to overshadow efforts at building bridges of understanding. Groups like Al Qaeda and Boko Haram claim to operate in the name of Islam while clearly being irreverent to its spirit and core values. On closer examination, much of the violence in the name of Islam is less motivated by faith and more so by poverty and desperation.

As smart and witty as Bill Maher is, he has a blind spot about religion in general and Islam in particular. On his recent ‘Real Time‘ show on HBO, Bill Maher asserted that extremism among Muslims is not limited to “a few bad apples.” Many Muslims are indeed committing gut wrenching violence in the name of Islam – from beheadings to suicide bombings. But Muslims are hardly alone. According to the U.S. Department of State, the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is one of “Africa’s oldest, most violent, and persistent armed groups.” UNICEF estimates that at least 66,000 children have been abducted by the LRA, which wants to create a state based on the biblical Ten Commandments. In Burma, Human Rights Watch cites, “Buddhist mobs attacked Muslim communities …. At least 44 people were killed and 1,400 mostly Muslim-owned businesses and houses were destroyed.”

To prove his point, Maher trotted out the example of Ayann Hirsi Ali who suffered genital mutilation in her native Somalia. He went on to note, “which almost all women do in [Somalia] and many other Muslim countries.” Female genital mutilation (FGM) is a scourge in many parts of Africa and the Middle East. However, its practice cuts across religious boundaries. For example, in the Christian majority nation of Eritrea, 89 percent of women between the ages of 15 and 49 have experienced FGM. In Ethiopia, another Christian majority nation, 74 percent women have suffered from FGM. And yet FGM is almost unheard of in many Muslim countries.

Boko Haram translates as “Western education is forbidden” and yet education was a top priority for Prophet Muhammad. There are well over 40 sayings attributed to Prophet Muhammad exhorting the seeking of knowledge. Among the most succinct are,

“To acquire knowledge is binding upon all Muslims, whether male or female”

and

“Acquire knowledge and impart it to the people.”

The only stipulation was that knowledge be beneficial. In one of the famous hadith (traditions) of Prophet Muhammad he is reported to have said,

“God, His angels and all those in Heavens and on Earth, even ants in their hills and fish in the water, call down blessings on those who instruct others in beneficial knowledge.”

It is common for Muslim moms to remind children to recite the following Quranic prayer before any school exam,

“Rabbi zidni ilma” meaning “O my Lord! Increase me in knowledge” (20:114)

Neither in the Quran nor in Prophetic sayings has the Arabic word for knowledge “ilm” any qualifier that knowledge be Eastern or Western, religious or secular.

In the maelstrom over Maher and Boko Haram something is remiss. Muslims majority societies are generally lagging behind the rest of the world in education, gender equity and social justice. The 2013 Global Gender Gap Report shows wide disparity in Muslim majority countries between men and women across for key areas of health, education, economics and politics. No Muslim majority country cracks the top ten in gender equity while at the bottom end, 9 out of 10 countries are Muslim majority. The Human Development Index, a composite of education, life expectancy and income, shows Muslim majority countries as lagging behind with not a single Muslim majority country ranking in the top 25 while the majority in the bottom 25 being Muslim majority.

Bill Maher has plenty of reasons to be critical of Muslims. However, by focusing on Islam, a faith that comforts and motivates hundreds of millions of people to do the right thing, he is alienating the very people whose efforts will be critical in eradicating the root causes that create such monsters as Boko Haram and al-Qaeda. Critics of Maher will also need to focus on confronting the retrograde preachers, the strident Islamists and the incompetent secularists whose actions or lack thereof underpin the rise of extremism. Maher is wrong. But he is not the problem. If Muslim societies lead the world in education, freedom and social justice, we will not have to deal with the scourge of Boko Haram or feel slighted by the incoherent rants of Maher. To use the clearly un-Islamic behavior of Boko Haram as a ploy to attack Islam is despicable. But it pales in comparison to the abuse of Islam’s sacred texts the extremists have engaged in to justify their nihilism.

Tamerlan and Dzokhar Tsarnaev resemble Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the Columbine gunmen who killed 13 people using guns, explosive devices and bombs rigged to cars. And yet, unlike with the Tasrnaevs, no one dug into which church Harris and Klebold worshiped at. Timothy McVeigh, the self-radicalized Oklahoma City bomber who killed 168 including 19 children under the age of 6, was motivated by radical Christian and anti-government views. And yet no one asked his family or members of his faith if they were patriotic Americans. The apparent double standard is one of many troubling aspects of expert commentary in the aftermath of the Boston tragedy.

U.S. government sources indicate that Tsarnaevs were not connected to any outside terror group. How then did an otherwise “normal” person turn to such deranged violence? To the Fox News crowd, the motive is Islam and the trigger is jihad. Underreported is the fact that Muslim groups and Islamic Centers around the country have been unequivocal in their condemnation of the bombings and in expressing their solidarity with the citizens of Boston. Killing innocent people in the name of Islam is not jihad, which is semantically translated as striving for good. Its murder and criminal. Also underreported is the fact that imams (Muslim religious leaders) in Boston are refusing to give Tamerlan proper Islamic burial rites.

The Brennan Law Center in its 2011 report, “Rethinking Radicalization” wrote, “The path to terrorism does not have a fixed trajectory with each step of the process having specific and identifiable markers.” Any assumption that terrorism is linked to a religion is gross oversimplification of a complex process that social scientists indicate has no set pattern. Experts have repudiated the “religious conveyor belt” theory, which suggests a linear progression from religiosity to radicalization to violence. Not everyone who holds hardline conservative religious views becomes a terrorist nor is every mentally ill person a step removed from being a mass murder. Placing mosques under scrutiny and American Muslims under surveillance, as has been suggested by some in the U.S. Congress, only alienates the very community whose help is needed to thwart any radicals in their midst. In fact several terrorists have been nabbed because of cooperation from the American Muslim community. The Brennan Report went on to say, “There is no profile of the type of person who becomes a terrorist; indeed, the process by which a person embraces violence is fluid, making it nearly impossible to predict who will move from espousing “radical” views to committing violent acts. …. Islam itself does not drive terrorism. In fact, the most recent research suggests that a well-developed Muslim identity actually counteracts jihadism.”

The first step toward radicalization is usually discontent, which may precipitate an identity crisis. It appears that Tamerlan was seeking a new identity after, for unknown reasons, failing to embrace his American identity. As often, though not always, is the case, he turned to religion, primarily via the Internet, where he engaged a mysterious character named Misha, who reportedly harbored extremist views (latest reports suggests that Misha was not Tamerlan’s radical teacher). Successful recruitment occurred because Tamerlan was ignorant of mainstream Islam and became pliable in the hand of his manipulator and gullible to the many conspiracy theories proliferating cyberspace. Former CIA officer Marc Sageman, in his book “Leaderless Jihad,” notes that most terrorists lack religious knowledge and were secular individuals until just before joining an extremist group.

Sustaining a radicalized state of mind requires isolation from mainstream society. Tamerlan cut himself off from society, giving up boxing and music. Besides being aloof, Tamerlan was angry and excessively critical of society. He was thrown out a Boston mosque after violently protesting a sermon that praised Martin Luther King’s non-violence. This was yet another tell-tale sign. While the mosque leaders did the right thing by throwing him out, should they have gone a step further and engaged Tamerlan in a conversation? It is hard to know with certainty if such a conversation would have stopped Tamerlan but it may have unearthed information that flagged him as potential threat to society. However, given our constitutional protections, it is unclear as to what law enforcement could have done had they received such a report.

Given the lack of any pattern in radicalization, both law enforcement and community leaders face a very difficult task as to how they go about unearthing violence-prone radicals. As a free society, we will have to manage such threats without veering away from our constitutional principles. Fear of terrorism should not change our way of life. Truth be told, according to some experts, the chances of dying from terrorism is 1 in 1.7 million. The chances of dying in a car accident are 1 in 100 and by gun violence 1 in 25,000. A little perspective may help us better cope with the frenzy.
—————-
An abbreviated version of the article above ran in the Florida Times Union under the title “Double standard for how terrorists are viewed is troubling” ]]> http://forcommongood.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=285 0 http://forcommongood.com/blog/?p=268 http://forcommongood.com/blog/?p=268#comments Thu, 05 Jul 2012 21:57:02 +0000 Parvez Ahmed http://forcommongood.com/blog/?p=268 Huffington Post, July 5, 2012

Also on Patheos, July 5, 2012.

Nearly 4 in 10 Americans hold an unfavorable view of Islam and Muslims. That number has remained steady since 9-11. Several factors contribute to this negative perception, certainly none greater than Muslims, albeit a few, committing terrorism in the name of Islam. The media exasperates this negativity, as aptly noted in Edward Said’s 1981 classic Covering Islam. However, some media outlets are more egregious than others. A 2011 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) found that the majority of Fox News viewers perceive that Muslims want to establish Shari’a law in America and express the distressing view that Muslims are NOT an important part of America’s religious fabric. Nearly 7 in 10 viewers of Fox News believe that the values of Islam are at odds with American values. In contrast fewer than 4 in 10 viewers of Public Television hold such negative perceptions.

The difference between Fox News viewers and those who watch Public Television is palpable. Spurring the gulf of difference is the content of programming. Fox News did not find anything morally objectionable with airing the virulently Islamophobic movie “Obsession: The Threat of Radical Islam.” While cognizant of the threat from those who kill in the name of Islam, public television and radio has better grasped the importance of providing viewers and listeners with the opportunity to develop a more holistic view of Islam. The fact that 4 in 10 Americans have never socially interacted with a Muslim, necessitates such holism.

On Friday, July 6 at 9 pm EST, PBS will nationally broadcast a documentary titled, “Islamic Art: Mirror of the Invisible World” narrated by Susan Sarandon. The documentary is a timely reminder about the many contributions made by Muslims to art and culture. As an educator, I am looking forward to this documentary as it adds to a growing collection of well-made documentaries that provide a semblance of balance to the general propensity in the media to stereotype Muslims.

Recently I was conducting a Sunday school class for a group of Muslim teenagers at my mosque. To my great disappointment, but not surprise, I found that the Muslims are almost as ill-informed as my non-Muslim elderly students who attend my continuing education class on Islam that I teach at my university. Both groups did not have an appreciation for the many innovations that the Muslim world has given us, which we take for granted in our daily lives. The word coffee has its genesis in the Arabic qahwa, which became the Turkish kahve then the Italian caffé. The game of chess originated in India but it was introduced to Europe by the Moors in Spain during their tenth century rule. The word rook comes from the Persian rukh, which means a chariot. A millennium before the Wright brothers, Abbas ibn Firnas made several attempts to build a flying machine. He had constructed a device that allowed him to stay in flight for over 10 minutes. He crash landed and correctly concluded that he had forgotten to give his invention the tail it needed to stabilize while landing. Shampoo was introduced to England by a Muslim who was appointed Shampooing Surgeon to King George IV. Many of the modern-day surgical instruments are nearly the same design as devised by a Muslim physician named al-Zahrawi in the 10^th century. Almost half a century before Louis Pasteur, children in Turkey were being vaccinated to inoculate against small pox.

The British non-profit and non-religious organization the Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilization through their 1001 Inventions exhibits and research is helping to reintroduce these facts to not only the Western world but also to Muslims. They have held exhibitions and film shows from New York to Istanbul.

Criticism of Muslims, when warranted, is a legitimate exercise in public discourse. But our national interests are ill-served if we only criticize and never appreciate. We are still paying the price of our many adventures in the Muslim world often initiated on a foundation of misguided views about the beliefs, history and culture of Muslims. Recently TIME magazine ran a cover story asking the rhetorical question “Is America Islamophobic?” I do not believe so. PBS airing yet another documentary about Islam suggests that a small but critical mass of Americans remain open minded about better understanding other cultures and religions. Critics of public radio and television, I am sure, will accuse PBS of a pro-Islam bias. And many Muslims may hastily conclude that the negative attitude of Fox News viewers is representative of the general unawareness of Islam in America. PBS’s Friday night national broadcast provides both critics countervailing facts to reconsider their stereotyping.

Muslims have condemned terrorism.

CLICK HERE to read some of the “Islamic Statements Against Terrorism”

CLICK HERE to read Prof. Juan Cole’s response to Tom Friedman:

CLICK HERE to see a listing of condemnations of terrorist attacks by individuals and organizations:

See below the statement released by all major American Muslim organizations on September 11, 2001.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – 9/11/01

U.S. MUSLIMS CONDEMN TERRORIST ATTACKS

(WASHINGTON, DC – 9/11/2001) – The American Muslim Political Coordination Council (AMPCC), today condemned the apparent terrorist attacks in New York and Washington and offered condolences to the families of those who were killed or injured.

The AMPCC statement read in part:

“American Muslims utterly condemn what are apparently vicious and cowardly acts of terrorism against innocent civilians. We join with all Americans in calling for the swift apprehension and punishment of the perpetrators. No political cause could ever be assisted by such immoral acts.”

Leaders of the American Muslim Political Coordination Council (AMPCC) held a meeting in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, to issue the following points related to the terrorist attacks:

1) We assert unequivocal condemnation based on our religious values and our identity as American Muslims;

2) We do not need to defend every maniacal incident emanating from the Muslim world or the Muslim community, just as other religious groups need not defend their extremists;

3) We offer compassion to the victims and solidarity with all Americans in the face of danger;

4) Notwithstanding the disbelief that anyone following the faith of Islam could commit such a heinous crime, we condemn the act regardless of the identity of the perpetrators;

5) We deplore the irresponsible reporting that twists the realities and complexities of the Muslim world in order to project only anti-American sentiment during this disturbing period when we are all attempting to move beyond the state of mourning for the national tragedy;

6) We warn against opportunists who will exploit the misery and hysteria of the public in order to promote a political agenda aimed at tarnishing the name of Islam and Muslims;

7) We should not diminish our resolve to be active in protecting the civil liberties of all Americans and struggling for justice both locally and globally;

8) We need to organize activities to help the victims medically, psychologically and in every other way we can.

MAKING SENSE OF THE SENSELESS (Huffington Post, 2009)

PEACE IS AN ELEMENT OF ISLAM (Florida Times Union, 2008)

ISLAM HAS NO TIES TO TERRORISM (Miami Herald, 2007)

A SENSIBLE WAY TO DESCRIBE TERRORISTS (Florida Times Union, 2006)

I am also providing an interview with author and educator, Robert Pape of the University of Chicago. He has done pioneering work trying to determine the “logic of suicide terrorism.” Here is interview:

THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE, 2005

Also read the following from the CATO INSTITUTE:

In addition, read my published paper, Terror in the Name of Islam – Unholy War Not Jihad in the Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, 2007-2008.

Good evening. Shalom, Peace and Salaam-

It is my great honor and pleasure to be here today.

Today is a day whose memories are seared into our individual and collective consciousness.

Today is a day that is profound and yet instructive.

Today is a day that is solemn but also a reminder of our capacity to triumph over tragedy.

Rabbi Alvin Fine in his celebrated poem, “Life is a Journey” wrote:

“Birth is a beginning and death a destination.
…..
From innocence to awareness
And ignorance to knowing;
From foolishness to discretion
And then, perhaps, to wisdom;
From weakness to strength
…
From offense to forgiveness,
From loneliness to love,
From joy to gratitude,
From pain to compassion,
And grief to understanding –
From fear to faith….”

The good Rabbi in poignant words reflected eternal truths. Such sentiments are not only part of his Jewish spirituality but are also at the heart of all other great religious traditions. Rabbi Fine could have read this from the pulpit at a mosque or a church and the congregation would have nodded approvingly.

Such commonality between the essential core of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, what we often call the Abrahamic traditions, ought to be our springboard to transform ourselves “From Fear to Faith, From Grief to Understanding.”

Grief, fear, ignorance, loneliness, pain, weakness and foolishness are all part of our human existence. These emotional responses sometimes are useful defense mechanisms, allowing us the means to cope with tragic situations. And yet if such feelings linger then they can also be debilitating.

And so with the passage of time and by reaching deep into our indomitable human spirit we hope to arrive at place where we develop understanding, gratitude, compassion and love. In this journey to rebuild and renew, we stand in need of God and we stand in need of each other.

On the 10th anniversary of the fateful terrorist attacks against our country, it is fair to ask – have we overcome our fears and regained our trust in humanity. Have we overcome our grief and gained new insights about the world we live in?

While we had no choice in being attacked we did and do have a choice on how we respond. Ten years ago we asked questions such as – Why us? Why they hate us? Where were you when you heard the news? What did you feel?

Today the relevant questions are we safer? Are we freer? Are we better off? And finally, where do we go from here?

The fact that there has been no large scale attack since 9-11 creates a perception that we are safer. And yet Americans continue to die at the hand of terrorists. Sometimes the terrorists are foreign born, such as the 9-11 attackers.

Sometimes they are people who we entrusted to protect us, such those who bombed a federal building in Oklahoma in 1995 or the Army major who gunned down his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009. And sometimes the terrorists are our neighbors, such as the gunman who went on a rampage in Arizona killing several innocent people and nearly killing a U.S. Congressman.

Terror comes in many forms. While being vigilant we must also restrain ourselves from applying superficial narratives, which can do more harm than good.

The lingering fear of another attack has caused us to significantly change our lifestyle. In our effort to guard against any and all possible attacks, we have sacrificed essential liberties and accepted cosmetic security measures. Even if we accept the argument that we are safer, we are not the same America we used to be. In the words of my friend David Cole, professor at Georgetown University, we are less safe and less free. Benjamin Franklin’s prophecy that those who trade away liberty to be more safe deserve neither has sadly come true.

But are we better off today?

In 2001 the U.S. GDP per capita was second in the world and the U.S. economy the undisputed and unchallenged leader in the world. In 2011 U.S. GDP per capita is 9th in the world with several major economies closing in fast. China was ranked 129th in 2001 is now ranked 24th.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was around 9600 on September 10th 2001. On Friday the Dow closed at a little below 11,000. This represented an anemic 1.4% annual growth rate in the decade after 9-11. In the decade preceding 9-11 the Dow grew at the rate of about 22% per year.

In 2001 the U.S. had a 128 billion dollar budget surplus. In 2011 we have a 1.3 trillion dollar deficit. Gas was about $1.50 per gallon in 2001 and is nearly $3.60 per gallon today. Unemployment rate was 4.9% and today is it 9.1%, more than doubled.

It is true that not all of the economic problems are related to 9-11 or even connected to it. Much of the bleak picture is attributable to the economic recession and financial market troubles that started in 2007. Yet it is undeniable that the costs of 2 ½ wars (Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya) has crossed 1.24 trillion dollars and has had an indelible impact on our life at home and our image abroad.

The changing face of the world after 9-11, is most easily recognized every time we go to the airport to take a flight. The changing face of the world after 9-11 is most readily felt by the military families who bear the disproportionate burdens of keeping us safe. The human toll from the death of soldiers to soldiers returning with life altering wounds has been staggering and yet as a society we have mostly paid lip-service to their plight.

Today we are also less tolerant of each other and generally uncivil in our public discourse. One minority community, the American-Muslims, have been particularly challenged after 9-11. In addition to the things that worry all Americans, Muslims have to put up with increased scrutiny of their activities and constant second guessing of their motives, not to mention discrimination or profiling. Last year, a survey released by Time showed nearly six in ten Americans held an unfavorable view of Muslims. A Gallup poll released the same year revealed four in ten Americans admitting to “feeling at least ‘a little’ prejudice” towards Muslims.

The tragedy of 9-11 naturally evoked fear and many of our fellow citizens mistakenly felt that reducing the freedom of others will increase our safety. During difficult times we need the courage to understand others. Mutual respect is the cornerstone of great civilizations. All great religions of the world teach us this.

In the Jewish tradition, one of the basic teachings of Avot, understood to be Ethics of the Fathers, is the necessity of respecting others – respecting their space, their property, their right to opinions and their humanity. Respect for humans is a distinctive Torah value, as respecting human’s leads to appreciation and reverence of the Almighty Himself.

The Christian tradition asks that honor and dignity be afforded to everyone. “For in the image of God has God made man.” (Genesis 9:6)

In the Islamic holy text the Quran we read – “O mankind! Surely We have created you of a male and a female, and made you tribes and families that you may know each other; surely the most honorable of you in the sight of Allah (God) is the most righteous of you; surely God is Knowing, Aware of all things.” [49:13].

And yet many times throughout history, people of faith have fallen short of these ideals. A small minority among all faith groups have developed a militant form of piety. The genesis of such militancy is the world view, common to extremists, that God is on their side. They fail to heed the common sense sentiment of Abraham Lincoln that rather than falsely claiming whose side God is on, it is far better that each one of us strive to be on God’s side.

Unfortunately many of my fellow Americans have mistakenly concluded a link between terrorism and my faith of Islam. A closer scrutiny reveals that such heinous actions are a misrepresentation of core religious teachings. The Quran emphasizes sanctity of life, “and do not take any human being’s life (the life) which God has declared to be sacred.” (Chapter 6:151).

The Islamic traditions honor Christians and Jews as People of the Book and states, “Those who believe (in the Quran), and those who follow the Jewish (Scriptures), and the Christians, and the Sabians, and who believe in God and the last day and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear nor shall they grieve.” (2:62)

Terrorism is not a result of any religious teaching. Equating terrorism with any religion makes a community of faith doubly vulnerable – to both the random acts of terror and the ensuing backlash.

All of us can make a difference. We must regain the best of our faith traditions and our core American values. In my faith tradition there is a famous saying: “Do you want to love God? Then start by respecting those you live with.”

Such inward introspection will help us live up to Rabbi Fine’s optimism that from within the depths of unimaginable tragedy can arise the best of our collective and common values.

I will leave you with a poem from my native India, from a poet named Tagore who in his Nobel Prize winning work the Gitanjali (Ode to God), wrote,

In desperate hope I go and search for her in all the corners of my room; I find her not.
My house is small and what has gone from it once, can never be regained.
But infinite is Thy mansion, my Lord, and seeking her I have to come to Thy door.
I stand under the golden canopy of Thine evening sky and I lift my eager eyes to seek Thy face.
I have come to the brink of eternity from which nothing can vanish–no hope, no happiness, no vision of a face seen through tears.
Oh Lord, dip my emptied life into that ocean, plunge it into its deepest fullness.
Let me for once feel the lost sweet touch – the allness of the universe.

Thank you.

May God bless you. May God bless the United States of America.