A reactionary "Islam" is being perpetuated by progressive identity politics

From the Ihsan blog (excerpts - please read entire article)

I stand neither in support or condemnation of the decision by Amina Wadud to lead a mixed-gender Jummah salat earlier this year.
...
Yet, in the hullabaloo that followed events in New York, reactionary responses have been equally evident within the Muslim Wake Up/Progressive Muslim Union (MWU/PMU) camp. Though none have included direct threats, they are arguably as sinister in the way they are now increasingly co-opting tropes long employed by Orientalist intellectuals to debase Muslim scholarly traditions.
...
The claims that MWU/PMU are merely local expressions of Islam are now no longer tenable, as MWU’s editorial stance moves beyond association with the Empire’s dominant culture to a position of direct involvement with its hegemonic project. When the authors of such supremacist nonsense include an American marine who has served in both Afghanistan and Iraq, it seems only a matter of time before MWU/PMU becomes the American liberal Muslim dream-come-true envisaged by the Rand report.

Click here to read entire article

There have been several interesting articles recently regarding the PMUNA (links below). However, these articles miss a critical point regarding this, and other such so-called "reform" Islam organizations.

1. Progressive Islam's Smelly Kebabs

2. Making sense of the progressive Muslim agenda

The point these articles miss is that, at this time, the United States has a specific agenda regarding how it wishes to see Islam's face changed. And the Progressive Muslim Union NA also has an agenda that it wants to impose on the Muslim community.

This fact was best stated by Abdus Sattar Ghazzali in a recent article:

It may be recalled that the Progressive Muslim Union of North America (PMUNA) the main backer of Friday prayer circus tried to push the major American Muslim organizations into corner by demanding a position on this non-issue. Just before the stunt, one of PMUNA’s co-founders demanded that the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), KARAMAH, the American Sufi Muslim Association, Women in Islam and Azizah Magazine should take a position on this non-issue.

The current political climate is such that the PMU NA has set itself up as the "good Muslims" (in the eyes of the United States media) and anyone that does not agree with them gets branded as "extremists" "backwards" "neo-salafis" "wahabbis" "mullah" and so on... Sometimes the media does this labeling, most other times the PMUNA officials hurl these epithets.

Furthermore there are PMUNA board members who are associated with organizations that want to support the US "war on terror." What does this mean?

A recent article in US news has pointed out that this "war on terror" includes "changing the face of Islam."

After repeated missteps since the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government has embarked on a campaign of political warfare unmatched since the height of the Cold War. From military psychological-operations teams and CIA covert operatives to openly funded media and think tanks, Washington is plowing tens of millions of dollars into a campaign to influence not only Muslim societies but Islam itself.

(See side bar for information on other PMU NA board members.)

An article suggests that the PMUNA supporters are lashing out, or maybe, like adolescents acting out.

If we are to use such analogies - then we should add that the PMUNA is playing with the neighborhood bully, and if you don't do as they say - the bully will attack you, and beat you up.

There are social problems within the Muslim community, however as Noam Chomsky has said regarding US interventions:

The right of humanitarian intervention, if it exists as a category in international law, is premised on the "good faith" of those intervening. That assumption of good faith is based not on their rhetoric but on their record, in particular their record of adherence to the principles of international law, World Court decisions, and so on. But if we look at the historical record, the United States does not qualify.

"changing the face of Islam"

From around the blogsphere:

Living Tradition writes:

Anyone who doesn't believe that the gov't is pouring tons of money and time into the so-called "reformist" movement "within" Islam is naive or blind or both. Anyone who thinks the Rand report was a nice piece of reading, but that it has nothing to do with current so-called "reformist" movements or gov't spending and activity is naive, blind, or a liar.

click here to read more

From the Ninetnine Network: Who's Amina Wadud?

Yes, I agree with Dr. Wadud about issues of separation overkill between brothers and sisters. Some brothers do seem to make a display of their piety for the sake of other brothers, yet probably manage quite well mixing it up on their jobs or in university classrooms. And, as an African American, I'm as sick as she is about the racism among Muslims.

Yet, why does this groundswell of attention and focus on Dr. Wadud seem so manufactured? She is a learned Muslim, granted, and I do get the feeling that she sees this as a kind of calling. However, I believe Amina Wadud's campaign is a divisive diversion. It seems as calculated as what I imagine takes place in the newsroom at CNN when they're deciding what will be news and what will get barely a mention. The Schiavo woman is a huge story, Iraq gets the backburner coverage. Understandably, CNN's goal is to keep the attention off the fact that two years down the road things are not turning out as the architects of the invasion of Iraq had planned.
....

I clearly don't get why Amina Wadud and The Progressive Muslim Union of North America have chosen these issues but I do see what they have in common. None of these issues serves nor brings together the Muslim community. To the glee of the American power structure, they do just the opposite.

Click here to read more

The modern Brown Sahibs

Zafar Bangash writes (excerpts)

Over the last 30 or 40 years, another phenomenon has emerged: the arrival of a large number of Muslims in Europe and North America. In addition to the raw racism and discrimination they face, the post-911 environment has made life much worse. Every Muslim is now regarded as a potential terrorist, such racism being promoted by Western governments as well as academia and the media, which never tire of lecturing others about democracy, freedom and equality. While most Muslims are appalled at such blatant racism, there is a tiny group among them that can never show enough gratitude for being allowed to live in the West. The more they are insulted, the lower they stoop; they display what the late Malcolm X (El-Haj Malik Shabazz) called the ‘House Slave’ mentality, identifying completely with the slave master. He distinguishes this state from that of the ‘Field Slave’, the quintessential rebel forever trying to escape. As Malcolm X put it: “When the master is sick, the House Slave says, ‘What’s the matter master, are we sick?’ while the Field Slave prays for his death.” The house-slave mentality is now also displayed by the small breed of Muslims trying to ingratiate themselves with the colonial masters in Europe and North America.

------

These modern-day house slaves, however, ignore a simple historical fact: colonialists have no permanent friends, only permanent interests; they have little use for such a slave mentality, especially when they know that the house slaves are a tiny minority of the colonized peoples. Despite their undoubtedly hard life in the West today, Muslims will not achieve anything by means of subservience. If they are to achieve any degree of respect in the West, they will have to do it in the manner of other political movements, such as the movements for women’s and workers’ rights in the early twentieth century. There can be no substitute for hard work to secure a life and status of dignity and respect.

Click here to read complete article

Also read a Living Traditions Blog article on Slave Mentality in the American Umma

The US war on Islam

Hearts, Minds, and Dollars

In an Unseen Front in the War on Terrorism, America is Spending Millions...
To Change the Very Face of Islam.

Click here to read all about it!

The Pragmatic Muslms of America

Abdul Sattar Ghazali writes:

Attention of the American Muslim community is distracted these days by a non-issue that is, if a woman can lead Friday prayers? This distraction is sparked by the drama of Friday prayer in New York led by a woman who says that she has problem with the Quran. The circus of holding this prayer at a Church amid focus of TV cameras and presence of mainstream media shows the motives and designs of the perpetrators of this stunt and their backers.

It may be recalled that the Progressive Muslim Union of North America (PMUNA) the main backer of Friday prayer circus tried to push the major American Muslim organizations into corner by demanding a position on this non-issue. Just before the stunt, one of PMUNA’s co-founders demanded that the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), KARAMAH, the American Sufi Muslim Association, Women in Islam and Azizah Magazine should take a position on this non-issue.

Returning to the motives and objectives of the so-called progressive or modern Muslims to whom I consider as the pragmatic Muslims because of their utilitarian approach towards Islam. A pragmatist judges the value of ideas, judgments, hypotheses, theories and systems, according to their capacity to satisfy human needs. In other words what is good for material benefit (read market economy) is good for human beings. This is the agenda of the “independent” think tanks and neo-Orientalists. It appears that by default or by design, the pragmatic Muslims are working for them.

Click here to read more

Also read: "Reformation" of Islam through psuedo events

Who defines Muslims?

Dr. Aslam Abdullah has an article on Islamicity discussing the plethora of new terms for defining Islam that are in fashion these days. While he makes some important points, the current context is such that the United States has decided to put its force behind the so-called "moderate" and "progressive" versions of Islam - that would be designed to create an Americanized version of Islam - largely toothless, cultural, and secular.

And you can expect that major university, and foundation funding will be given to organizations pushing these new sects of "Islam." You can also expect lots of new publications, and media attention given to these newly minted, and manipulated versions of "Islam."

Terms that are in fashion currently are moderate Islam, progressive Islam, enlightened Islam, modern Islam, extremist Islam, liberal Islam, conservative Islam, reformed Islam, orthodox Islam, fundamentalist Islam, medieval Islam, and obscurantist Islam, etc. What is interesting is that these terms emerge from the limitations of our own readings of Islam controlled by our own social-political experiences. For instance, in the context of the U.S. and the West, it is now fashionable to use terms such as progressive Islam and moderate Islam.

Click here to read Dr. Abdullah's article

See also the Living Tradition Blog's article on "Who needs a reformation?"

The National Security Council's "Muslim Outreach Policy"

The current political climate is such that the Progressive Muslim Union NA has set itself up as the "good Muslims" (in the eyes of the United States media) and anyone that does not agree with them gets branded as "extremists" "backwards" "neo-salafis" "wahabbis" "mullah" and so on... Sometimes the media does this labeling, most other times the PMUNA officials hurl these epithets.

Furthermore there are PMUNA board members who are associated with organizations that want to support the US "war on terror." What does this mean?

A recent article in US news has pointed out that this "war on terror" includes "changing the face of Islam."

After repeated missteps since the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government has embarked on a campaign of political warfare unmatched since the height of the Cold War. From military psychological-operations teams and CIA covert operatives to openly funded media and think tanks, Washington is plowing tens of millions of dollars into a campaign to influence not only Muslim societies but Islam itself.

The US General Accountablity Office (GAO) has come out with a new report on "public diplomacy" that is worth a read in its entirity (pdf file)

The most important part for visitors to this blog is on page 13:

Effectiveness of Muslim Outreach Committee Remains to be Determined

In July 2004, the National Security Council created the Muslim World Outreach Policy Coordinating Committee to replace the Strategic Communications Policy Coordinating Committee.

According to a senior State official, the group is working on three specific activities. To date, the committee has collected ideas from embassies in Muslim-majority countries, developed a strategic plan for communicating with the Muslim world, and is drafting a tactical paper to operationalize the strategy. In its poll of embassies, the committee collected information on outreach activities to Muslim audiences.

According to an official at State familiar with the committee’s activities, the committee then developed a strategy to address the problems faced by the public diplomacy community and outlined two broad goals: working with moderate Muslims and countering extremism.

(Reflection question for PMUNA debate blog readers: Who will define what is a "moderate Muslim" and what constitutes "extremism?")

The committee is finalizing this strategy, which emphasizes the role of regional partnerships and the need to tailor programs to specific countries, and plans to present it to the National Security Council in early 2005. Following approval, the strategy and tactics papers will be sent to embassies around the world. State expects the implementation of this strategy to begin in early 2005.

Click here to read more!

And now the Asra Nomani-Irshad Manji Show?

The Amina Wadud (PMUNA advisory board member) media showcase was organized by Progressive Muslim Union Executive Director Ahmed Nassef, in conjunction with the "Asra Nomani Muslim Women's Freedom Tour."

Nomani's book was publicized right along side the Wadud event on the PMU media outlet: "Muslim Wake Up."

Asra Nomani's most recent appearance was with Irshad Manji at a "Forbes Executive Women's Forum."

Interestingly enough, although the forum bills itself as a discussion on Arab women - there were no Arab women on this panel!

Imperial Muslims

Check out A Heavy Truth blog for a series on Imperial Muslims - the first one featured is Dr. Zalmak Khalilzad - recently nominated as new ambassador to Iraq.

Also the Living Tradition Blog has a new entry on the undoing of Muqtedar Khan (PMU advisory board member)

Background/Context: The Imperial Cure

Gary Leupp writes: (excerpts)

Condi (the USA Secretary of State) doesn't say Islam is the problem. Secretaries of state in today's world, which is 20% Muslim, can't say such things. But her implication is clear. Unless the U.S. installs its allies in broader Middle East (Muslim) capitals and works with them to change the "hearts and minds" of their Muslim populations, so that they get it into their heads that (as Bush insists) "the American people are a good people" (and their government also good by definition) our children here in the U.S. will have to worry about their safety. The "different kind of Middle East" the administration envisions is one in which Islamic belief itself undergoes a kind of reformation induced from without.

While publicly insisting that it respects Islam as "a religion of peace," the administration will continue to do what American politicians have done for years. "I'm for racial equality, equality of opportunity," they'll say, then use nuance and symbols and subtly play the race card. The administration exploits anti-Muslim bigotry and irrational fear of "those people" to justify to the American public an ongoing campaign, currently honing in on Syria and Iran, to "build" a "stable" Muslim world