Assimilation of Muslims. Or, Islamization of Knowledge

Assimilation of Muslims. Or, Islamization of Knowledge

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Reading the latest issue of the Message, several questions 
occurred to me which seemed relevant from the point of view of the above 
topic.  

 I saw an ad for an Islamic Center Executive Director by the 
Islamic Association of North Texas in this magazine.  It is revealing 
that while the ad says that things like "North American management and/or 
business experience," "demonstrated leadership qualities, excellent 
communication skills, good people skills, public speaking ability," etc., 
are a MUST, it merely mentions "history with and experience in Islamic 
work and activities as highly desirable."  Notice that even the latter 
qualification is in the realm of activism, such as fundraising.  Nowhere 
is there any mention of Islamic knowledge of any kind whatsoever.

   This is fascinating.  We all know that we are currently 
"importing" khatibs/"scholars" etc. from abroad.  Such people often are 
good at some technical skills but are quite unaware of the social context 
and dynamics of this society.  Perhaps the people advertising for the 
Islamic Center Director felt that almost no one who is indigenous has the 
"Islamic" qualifications which probably ought to be part of any 
leadership role (at least in terms of having certain core knowledge) in 
an Islamic organization.  In this sense, the responsibility for not 
having pursued Islamic knowledge falls squarely on our shoulders.

      In the same magazine, there is an article glorifying the 
uniqueness of the "American Muslim."  Fascinating quotes from it follow 
(it is to be noted that this is a fairly common theme among activist 
American-born Muslims - I have met hundreds and hundreds of such people 
who echo  the same sentiments):

        Excerpts:

    "As my undergraduate days come to a close, I can look back on the 
past four years as being exactly the way I wanted them to be:  fast and 
furious...I have had the chance to be with a UNIQUE kind of Muslim:  an 
AMERICAN MUSLIM.  Those MUSLIMS WHO ARE COMING OF AGE IN THE WEST, 
PRIMARILY IN THE US, ARE PERHAPS THE BEST GENERATION THAT THE UMMAH HAS 
YET PRODUCED; THEY ARE HIGHLY EDUCATED, OBSERVANT OF AN ISLAM LARGELY 
UNHINDERED BY THE CULTURAL BAGGAGE THAT STIFLES IT IN SO MANY MUSLIM 
COUNTRIES AND HAVE AN UPWARD MOBILITY THAT WILL MAKE THEM THE BRIGHT HOPE 
OF THE MUSLIM WORLD.

       For the first time in history, the dominant power in the West 
contains millions of Muslims, MANY OF WHOM HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO GAIN 
HIGH OFFICE AND INFLUENCE.  THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING THAT CAN STOP 
DETERMINED MUSLIMS FROM BECOMING POLICY-MAKERS AND LEADERS IN OUR 
GOVERNMENT...

  The Muslim world by itself is mostly a collection of small, 
dysfunctional countries run by small, dysfunctional minds...Few Muslim 
countries are on the right track in terms of creating a multi-party 
democracy, a free-market system, and a minimum social safety net....

  Leadership is clearly not going to come from the Muslim world.  
The mantle of leadership has fallen on American Muslims (other Western 
Muslims live in even more racist societies such as the U.K. and France 
where they are unlikely to become influential)...It is a great irony that 
the Muslim world's brightest hope lies not in a warlord come to deliver 
them of their woes, a Salahuddin or Khairuddin Pasha, nor in a new 
movement, BUT IN HIGHLY-EDUCATED AND SOPHISITICATED WESTERNERS WHO HAPPEN 
TO BE FOLLOWERS OF ISLAM."   (emphasis added)

   
        Notice the last few words - sophisicated Westerners who HAPPEN to 
be Muslims.  Notice the first words - the BEST GENERATION THAT THE UMMAH 
HAS YET PRODUCED.  Notice the emphasis on joining the American 
power-elite as the solution to the Muslim world's problems.  Notice the 
unquestioning acceptance of "multi-party democracy," "free-market 
system," etc.  Even you British Muslims have been dismissed as irrelevant 
- sorry, brothers and sisters in Britain and France!

   Now, how come we are producing this kind of thinking?

        Our minds are colonized and that is all that is necessary in this 
day and age.  England does not need to send in 100,000 troops anymore to 
India, nor does the United States need to send in a million troops to 
Pakistan to colonize us.  All that they need to do is to colonize our 
minds, which we are letting them do.

  We cannot pretend that educating people in a certain mode of 
thinking through their entire formal schooling years will not fail to 
produce a certain kind of individual, whose worldview will not be in 
accord with the Qur'an and the sunnah. 

      Brothers and sisters - think what will be the condition of third 
or fourth generation Muslims in this country who are not educated 
Islamically?  Muslims came to this country not 30 years ago, but the 
first wave occurred 100 years ago.  Those (mostly Lebanese, Syrian, and 
other Arab) Muslim immigrants are almost completely assimilated today, to 
the point that many simply acknowledge being Muslims but may never even 
have prayed once in their lives.

   The methods of assimilation 100 or even 50 years ago were 
infinitely inferior to those that exist today.  Therefore, the process of 
assimilation will take place at a much faster pace (unless we do what HAS 
to be done).

   The process of assimilation is not at all aided one bit by the 
vast majority of those who "lead" Muslims in this country, since they are 
focused mostly on somehow being seen not as "threats" to this country or 
its economic or political system.  Much of this stems from their own need 
to be "accepted" when they arrived in the 1960's and a little later.

      So we need new leaders - but among the younger generation, most 
have very little knowledge of Islam.  The foreign born ones often bring 
in distorted perspectives and excessive affiliation to movements.  So 
what will happen in the future?

        In the same magazine, one sister writes about the influence of 
music on Muslims.  It says at one point, "Do not panic if you hear your 
child listening to this music.  Do not scream and yell at them and flip 
off the radio, or throw these CDs and cassettes into the trash; that 
would only increase the rebellion in an already rebellious teen."

        The question that arises is this:  How could the parents have let 
this influence get to the point where any active intereference is likely 
to lead to overt "rebellion"?  This is the result of not taking charge of 
the child's education from DAY ONE, and hoping instead that somehow, 
later on down the line, the process will be taken care of and the child 
will be "Islamized".

       Yet another article is extremely representative of activists who 
want to take part in politics.  It is called:  "Framer's Intent - Muslim 
Empowerment:  Implementing the US Constitution through Shariah."   The 
argument that the American Constitution is an "Islamic document" and that 
the Founding Fathers were "functionally" Islamic is staple for the 
advocates of political participation.  The entire tenor of the argument 
is that the SHARIAH APPROACHES THE BRILLIANCE OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION 
(not the other way around, although even that would be total ignorance of 
both the Shariy'ah as well as the American Constitution). 

    As I said, this argument is entirely typical of the attitude of 
thousands of young Muslim activists in this country - i.e., those who see 
themselves as committed and truly sincere.  Hence, even sincerity is 
often not enough when it comes to having independence of thought and 
appropriateness of action in accordance with Islamic imperatives.

        It is fairly obvious how we got to this extremely dangerous point 
of near assimilation/extinction.  But a lot can still be done to take 
charge of the situation and to radically change course.

      The ummah today is like a cesspool.  It is terribly dirty water, 
and everyone is standing in it, slamming their feet and throwing dirty 
water and mud on others standing in it too.  

        
        The  way out is to abandon the brand of activism that today 
passes for Islamic commitment.  If we leave this whole scenario and 
return some years later, believe me, nothing will have changed.  There 
will still be the same problems, the same dilemmas.  

 We have to realize that there are no easy, immediately 
implementable, one-word solutions.  Do ------ (fill in the blank) and 
everything will be all right.  Systematically, some of us have to remove 
ourselves from this mud (recognize that involvement with the community is 
an absolute must, but mostly as a way of keeping in touch with the reality 
of the situation and the actual needs of real Muslims, not as a way of 
expecting to make some "contribution" that can, in the immediate future, 
alter things in a substantial way) and begin thinking about the future - 
even the distant future.

 I believe that one of the biggest mistakes we have consistently 
been making for many decades (and even longer) is to say, let's take care 
of things now, we have to do this for the short-term.  As a result, 
almost all of our efforts get diverted into stop-gap measures.  It may 
seem brutal (but it isn't) that certain immediate "needs" might have to 
be ignored (don't worry, "activists" will jump in and fill the void if 
you exit this sphere) for the sake of the future.

        Consider - when you spend enormous amounts of time in 
organizational activities for your MSA, what is the result of such 
activities?

 When you spend time fund-raising, writing letters, trying to send 
relief supplies, etc., what is the result of such activity?

        In short, I believe that the real challenge is not fighting to 
regain the lost territory of Palestine or Kashmir or whatever - even if 
we regained the lost territory, what shall we teach these Muslim 
children?  What will be the basis of the "newly-liberated" society? 

 Our prescriptions are flawed because we see the source of 
enslavement in physical occupation, when in fact this mode of occupation 
is passe and only the more brute forces of certain groups of people (in 
Serbia, in India, in Israel, for instance) demand the imposition of such 
rule.  

  We WILLINGLY chose to come here to STUDY a certain way of 
THINKING and APPROACHING PROBLEMS.  That is all that needs to happen 
today in order for us to be enslaved.

 It is not that you can send your child to a so-called "Islamic 
school" and simultaneously assault them with confusing signals from the 
rest of the environment around them and expect to produce a healthy, 
mature, wise, knowledgeable Muslim adult.

        Is there an "Islamic biology" or "Islamic physics" to teach this 
child?  Has any Muslim written decently on world history over the last 100 
years from the Islamic point of view?  If not, how can we teach children 
history written from an unIslamic perspective and expect them to remain 
"Islamic"?  If the child does so, he/she will certainly be terribly 
confused and the seeds for loss of faith will already have been implanted.

  We have a clear choice to make.  Either we can want to hold on to 
our "comfort" zone - most of us have found something to give us comfort, 
something to hold on to, something to disguise the darkness of Muslim 
society and of its tremendous problems.  Most of us have come to 
the position of saying, oh, things are not that bad, there are many 
Islamic "movements" making a contribution, we are improving, etc., etc.  
Either we believe in these fanatasies - or, we decide that we will not 
choose comfort for the sake of real work, and decide to change our own 
lives first, and work on a certain vision for the future.

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Taken from a Khutba at Harvard on the above topic which was extremely well
received  and people showed  tremendous enthusiasm and interest afterward 
in the manner in which we can "Islamize" knowledge so that we can protect 
future generations of Muslims (Insha'Allah) from the confusion that has 
affected Muslims for several centuries now.
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shivani@husc.harvard.edu