Last week marked the 4th anniversary of the occupation of the American military in
Welcome to being a Muslim in the 21st century.
Last Easter weekend’s 1st Annual Australian Islamic Conference (AAIC), organized by Mercy Mission, highlighted this sad situation clearly and succinctly. It triggered a media flurry, with journalists flitting in and out of the conference, its international speakers being interviewed (of particular interest was British journalist or as the Herald-Sun would call her, ‘firebrand’ Yvonne Ridley) and unjust accusations falling in like the long-missed rain.
The speakers featured were diverse, each representing their own area of expertise, but all carrying well-balanced views of the international community and each able to present Islam without sounding defensive (except for maybe sister Ridley, but she had valid excuse to launch a verbal defence anyway). There were Mesheikh Shabir Ally and Jamal Badawi (no relation to a particular political figure) from Canada, Sheikh Waleed Basyouni the PhD Oxford scholar living in Houston, Texas, Sheikh Tawfique Chowdury from Melbourne’s Mercy Mission and al-Kauthar Institute, and sister Yvonne Ridley from Great Britain.
There was an intense and almost uncomfortable focus on the conference by the Australian media, especially when two of the planned speakers, Bilal Abu Ameenah Phillips and Sheikh Jaafar Idris were denied visas into the country. However, the event went on smoothly and excellently well, with only some apparent distress expressed by the organizers on the attendees’ seeming inability to be punctual. And right, misquotations of sr. Ridley by the press, The Herald-Sun being the party of note (and of much verbal assault by the person in question).
If nothing else, the conference highlighted the severe scrutiny being placed on Muslims of the 21st century, where electron microscopes would serve as the proper analogy. We are being monitored unscrupulously, and with a biased mindset in check. As Waleed Aly observed at the Red Cross’s forum on ‘International Humanitarian Law and the Muslim World’, the term ‘Muslim’ itself brings to the mind of the ignorant public majority an image of a political entity, rather than mere individuals trying to get along with everyday life.
All of a sudden, the opinion of one particular Muslim becomes the staunch and unfailing view of all. The popular notion seems to be that there is no such thing as individuality in Islam, and that adhering to Allah’s Divine Laws equates becoming part of an unthinkingly loyal club of zombies, which is most definitely not the case, as further inspection would prove. Although difficult to comprehend at first, the local media’s obsession over Sheikh al-Hilaly’s media faux pas makes some sense – they seriously view his position as ‘mufti’, as that of a leader over Australian (and New Zealand, let’s not forget) Muslims and thus, that his thoughts directly reflect those of other Muslims. The truth of the matter remains, that he is merely a form of community leader for the Lakemba district of Sydney, and his words – though they may undeniably affect the mindsets of some people – hold no direct consequence to the continental Muslim population.
There have been some dire miscommunication on both sides of the conflict, but it has also highlighted the fact that in today’s world, individual Muslim opinions have gained more focus and importance to the non-Muslim majority as represented by the media. A single Muslim is capable of garnering more political furore over his/her personal political views than an entire African nation steeped in humanitarian conflict is able to. In light of recent news headlines, one wonders: if a non-Muslim were to proclaim support for
Let us be honest with ourselves and underline the all-too-obvious: there is a bout of Islamophobia in the world, and the media perpetrates it with all too much eagerness. One thing the speakers at the conference and in particular, the ever-diplomatic Sheikh Jamal Badawi stressed upon, was that this blatant ignorance and stereotyping has to stop, and this change will only begin when Muslims start to become proactive, and counter such ignorance by taking it upon themselves to play a part in the community at large. We take the beatings everyday, but this increasing resistance to such attacks has made us dismissive and unaccounted for. We read and hear about ourselves in the media every single day, but allow such ignorance to pass by us unchecked. The worst of all is when we choose specific agendas and then react in such a manner that simply reiterates the stereotype, such as happened worldwide during the
Thus, if we cry out victim, we must check ourselves and where need be, share the blame.
Admittedly, doing da’wah in a secular world is not easy, mostly because the definition of religion used in most lands is not that of Islam’s dynamic meaning. As brother Mohamed Acharki noted in his article for UMIS’s Al-Qalam (April 2006), ‘Connotations of Religion’, we must reconsider the very different meanings that the word ‘religion’ entails for these two worlds on either spectrum. We need to look back on history and see where the Western image of religion originated, and where the secular mindset was derived from. We must review the meaning of Islam as a religion, and strive to clear the misunderstandings by being staunchly politically correct, so as to better convey the message of Allah’s Deen as we are meant to.
There is now an urgent need for knowledge and for learning the means of getting it across, especially in today’s world, where prejudice and ignorance have become joint lawmakers. Muslims need to wake up from the self-destructive cocoon we’ve been building around ourselves. We have to realize that change has arrived, and it’s caught us by surprise. To repeat the same mistake would only prove that we have failed to see the warning signs as they escalated all around us at alarming levels – war, poverty, genocide, political anarchy. We have to quit apologizing and start setting the record straight – that we are what we are, and that the few strays do not denote the entire ummah.
One conclusion surmised from the three-day convention was that there needs to be reaching out from both sides of the world; we have to seek and understand the ‘other’ so that we can let ourselves be heard clearly and justly. Even if there is no eminent ‘clash of civilizations’, there is an urgent need for dialogue and proactive action, if we are to safeguard peace and uphold justice for the generations to come. If history can teach us nothing else, it is that complacency is one of the most dangerous sedatives of civilization.
Labels: frustration, societal issues