Irshad Manji comments on the positive power of Ijtihad, the ancient tradition of critical thinking in Islam, and the importance of contemporary Muslim imams in justifying Muslim interfaith marriage.
You can’t stretch a shared political identity so far that it becomes overly abstract and therefore impossible for people to articulate in a way that everyone can easily understand it.
Think of this statement in the context of the Presidential debates in the current election. Why is the media obsessively focused on candidate mis-statements regarding their exposure to ‘sniper fire’ or commenting on how social alienation can lead to ‘clinging to guns and religion’. Why does it take 43 minutes into a debate for George Stephanopolous to ask the Democratic Party candidates the first substantive question on the economy, which he acknowledges as the most important issue in the election? Should candidate gaffes be defining elements of campaign momentum and qualifications for Presidential leadership? Not in my view.
American citizens span the spectrum from evangelical Christians to ardent atheists; from observant Muslims to secular and orthodox Jews. Ethnically, American citizens include Mexican Americans, African Americans, Puerto Rican Americans, European Americans, Russian Americans, and many other ethnicities. The definition of family in America now includes traditional marriages, same sex marriages, and no marriages. It is uneasy for societies to live with a complex narrative of citizenship forged from the richness of diversity that has made the melting pot of America historically great.
The rise of Evangelical Christian religious fundamentalism in America and Muslim fundamentalism in the rapidly modernizing societies of the Third World each share a reactive thread in opposition to the forced acknowledgement of diversity highlighted to all of us by the Internet. These movements, which are organized attempts to re-assert a single identity and to fight social complexity, trigger equally negative reactions form those that are left out of the picture. A complex world where differences are heightened because everyone is aware of everyone else requires nations to grapple with a complex narrative of citizenship. America's great historical achievement as a pluralistic society stems from its immigrant melting pot roots and from the strong democratic institutions that have evolved over 232 years to embrace this complexity. Let's not forget this in the 21st century.
Babar Ahmed is a talented up-and-coming movie director ("Royal Kill") and the son of Professor Akbar Ahmed, who first taught me about the history of Islam at the Aspen Institute's Socrates Society. Babar recently spoke about Islam at a gathering in Palm Beach. The Palm Beach Post reported on his remarks:
"And so why are we seeing suicide bombings if Muslim history is so good?" he asked.
Because Islam is divided into three groups, Ahmed theorized, the conservative, the moderate and the extremist, the latter of which is "growing every single day."
In the aftermath of the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan, Ahmed said, orphans were driven over the border to Pakistan, where they were taken in and educated by the most primitive tribal schools, run by illiterates who could not read or properly interpret the Koran.
"In driving the Soviets out of Afghanistan," Ahmed said, "the United States developed relationships with military dictators which continue to this day. That may have worked in the short term, but it left the orphans poor, desperate and angry, without any skills except how to use a gun."
The current movie, Charlie Wilson's War, makes the same point, he noted.
The solution, Ahmed said, is education, because the majority of Muslims are young. In Pakistan alone, he said, 40 percent of the population is under 16, and more receptive to radicalism.
"One half of the world's population is Muslim, Christian or Jewish," Ahmed said, "and if we don't start finding this common ground, we are going to be heading for a very turbulent century."
Babar is right on point. One of the few successful models of bilingual interfaith educational success in the Middle East is Hand in Hand in Israel-- the madrassas have a long way to go, but there is light at the end of the tunnel, and we can act to make sure that it is not on oncoming train...
Amin Khalaf, co-founder of Hand in Hand, the groundbreaking, highly successful, bilingual Jewish-Arab school system that educates close to 1,000 students in Israel, reports on the achievement of several major major milestones:
"*A dream came true on January 13th when students, teachers, and staff moved permanently to our new Max Rayne campus in Jerusalem. The journey has been a long one, and we will take many fond memories of the old campus with us as we settle in at the state-of-the-art Max Rayne School. A two-story library, a large indoor gymnasium, improved computer connectivity, and dedicated spaces for the arts and music are among the many highlights of the new campus. My thanks go to the Jerusalem Foundation for assisting Hand in Hand to construct the multimillion dollar facility.
*Hand in Hand worked with Merchavim and the Abraham Fund to prepare a position paper advocating the strengthening of bilingual education that was presented at a special conference held in Jaffa on December 27, 2007. Among those present was Education Minister Yuli Tamir, who expressed her personal support for expanding bilingual education options in the country.
*In February, Hand in Hand will organize Israel’s third annual conference on bilingual education in the multicultural city of Haifa. The international event, to be realized in cooperation with the University of Haifa, will bring together experts to discuss the mechanics and theory of bilingual education, one of the fundamental pillars of Hand in Hand’s work.
*Hand in Hand’s new fourth school in Beer Sheva has been operating with great success. Our 49 students in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten are enjoying their studies, and we are currently planning an expansion to the first grade next year. Kudos to the Hagar parents’ group for helping make the Beer Sheva School another Hand in Hand success."
The continued growth of this educational organization in a highly segregated society that experiences emotional stress and turmoil on a daily basis shows the integrity of the vision that inspired it over a decade ago. Bravo!
A friend of mine recently brought to my attention an article originally published April 2, 2007 in the The Daily Mail which revealed the following highly disturbing trend among teachers in England:
"Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Government backed study has revealed. It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial. There is also resistance to tackling the 11th century Crusades - where Christians fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusalem - because lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques. ... The study, funded by the Department for Education and Skills, looked into 'emotive and controversial' history teaching in primary and secondary schools. It found some teachers are dropping courses covering the Holocaust at the earliest opportunity over fears Muslim pupils might express anti-Semitic and anti-Israel reactions in class. "
Every blog comment or follow-on article that I've read on this topic condemns this "sidestepping" approach to the unpleasant historical truths that make up the Human Journey as fundamentally flawed. But it's not enough.
We need to be outraged at the lack of leadership that allows spineless fear of difficult discussions to bury reality. We now live in a digital world where anyone with a keyboard can falsify history or advocate hate on the Internet and remain largely unfettered in the name of free speech. In societies where the Government monitors and controls Internet content, we are more likely to see this control used to suppress dissent, force conformity. and paint a thin veneer of social harmony over underlying currents of instability and unrest.
We are increasingly buried under an avalanche of unverifiable data that can be manipulated to suit unscrupulous ends by groups with wide ranging hidden agendas.
Ignoring the truth of global history condemns us to ignorance and opens our societies to manipulation which, left unchecked, could send us back to the world of Hobbes.
"If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?"
George Orwell, 1984 
To learn more about the truth of the Holocaust, go to http://www.adl.org/education/edu_holocaust/default_holocaust.asp
My friend and college classmate, Mark Gluck, continues to promote inter-faith tolerance and cooperation in Israel through adult education. In cooperation with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Institute for Advanced Studies, Mark has organized the second US-Israeli-Palestinian Brain Research Conference, which will be held next May in Jerusalem and at Al Quds University in the West Bank on the Early Detection of Alzheimer's Disease. Mark is a Professor of Neuroscience at Rutgers, and his efforts are bringing together students and academics from around the world for this important collaboration. In my view, this is positive change, unlike the misguided academic boycott of Israel that a group of British professors continue to promote. to contact Mark about the conference, email him at gluck .@pavlov.rutgers.edu
An increasingly large proportion of American Jews under the age of 35 is becoming increasingly indifferent to and alienated from Israel. Why? Primarily because these people have not visited Israel.
According to a new white paper- Beyond Distancing: Young Adult American Jews and Their Alienation from Israel, by Steven M. Cohen and Ari Y. Kelman, “the erosion on Israel engagement has taken place over the entire age spectrum, from elderly, to upper-middle-aged, to lower-middle-aged, to young adult. … We see a pattern of shifting (declining) attachment to Israel stretching over 50 years, from those who are now 65 and older down to those in their 20s.”
Funded by the Jewish Identity Project of Reboot and the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, this paper’s conclusions are based on a survey of 1,828 Jewish respondents between December 2006 and January 2007 and focuses on non-Orthodox respondents.
What does Jewish American alienation from Israel mean? It means that the majority of American Jews under the age of 35 do not believe that the destruction of Israel would be a personal tragedy and do not talk about Israel to non-Jewish friends. Over 40% of American Jews under the age of 35 and almost 40% of American Jews under the age of 50 describe their level of Israel attachment as Low. 60% of the respondents have never been to Israel, and only 15% have been more than once. 48% of respondents believe that there is either a moderate amount of anti-Semitism in the U.S. today; 38% believe that there is a great deal of anti-Semitism in the U.S. today (62% believe there is a great deal of anti-Semitism in Europe today). More importantly, 47% believe that anti-Semitism will increase in the U.S. over the next several years (62% believe so in Europe).
Among the paper’s most important observations, intermarriage has an important influence on the distancing of American Jews from Israel. However “contrary to widely held beliefs, left-liberal political identity is not primarily responsible for driving down the Israel attachment scores among the non-Orthodox. If left-liberal politics were influential, we should see significant differences between liberal-Democrats and conservative-Republicans. The absence of such a pattern, and their inconsistent variations within age groups, run contrary to the assertion that political views are the prime source of disaffection from Israel.”
I am the son of a Holocaust survivor with a strong Jewish religious education, but I was largely indifferent to Israel for much of my life because I didn't have the perspective that you gain from actually going there.
I first visited Israel in early 2002 and have now been there 11 times. Going there has completely changed my perspective about the importance of the State of Israel. Today I am actively involved in direct philanthropic initiatives in Israel that promote religious pluralism. I care deeply for Israel while being highly sensitive to the country’s many faults and contradictions. I care about preserving the Jewish State of Israel in the face of great challenges, and I respect the deeply passionate people who make the commitment to live in Israel, even though I may not share their social or political views.
If you are a Jew who is indifferent to or alienated from Israel, you should visit the country and see for yourself why it is the center of so much global controversy. Don’t be a bystander in this developing story. The Business Leadership Council of the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation is leading a business professionals Mission to Israel next April 30—in my view, this is a great opportunity to gain a new perspective on Israel and on your Jewish identity.
I admit to having a particularly eclectic reading list this summer. Here it is, in no particular order:
Al Gore's The Assault on Reason is an important, factually supported indictment of the Bush Administration. A must read, regardless of your political affilation.
Three books on Maimonides:
Kenneth Seeskin's Maimonides: A Guide for Today's Perplexed, is a clearly written, relatively short monograph that ties together some of the key themes in The Guide for the Perplexed-- such as why literal iinterpretation of the Bible is not only senseless, but is contrary to G-d's intention. Yeshayahu Leibowitz's The Faith of Maimonides, and David Bakan's Maimonides on Prophecy. If you are into Maimonides (yes, there are a few of us who aren't Rabbis), philosophy, or general deep thinking, you will enjoy these books, which were recommended to me by a new friend who is a Maimonides expert.
In the "I wish it really was fiction" category, I read, in one extremely long sitting (while flying across the country) Khaled Hosseini's powerful A Thousand Splendid Suns. This novel takes you through 30 years of Afghanistan's chaotic history, as experienced through the personal tragedies of several families. The novel combines factual historic detail with an emphasis on the abrogation of women's rights under Shar'ia as applied by the Taliban. I agree that it is better than The Kite Runner, which I also devoured and found disturbing and enlightening.
On the lighter side, for the fisherman in you, there is Sex, Death, and Fly-Fishing, by John Gierach, who is the great scribe of all that makes trout-fishing a religion, as opposed to a recreational sport. What do I mean by that?
"The wool sweaters and millar mitts came off shortly aftrer the sun was up, and we were squinting and sweating by nine-thirty when the Callibeatis mayfly spinner fall should have started, but wouldn't. Not in that heat and piercing sunlight. That's why we were up so early in the first place."
Comprende? If not, don't read this book.
And finally, for paperback Ludlum-style mystery lovers who also enjoy a religious conspiracy that ties together the Holocaust, Pope Pius XII, professional assassins, the Mossad, Bernini, and the Jewish Ghetto in Rome, read Daniel Silva's The Confessor-- it's actually quite good.
Looking back at this reading list, I can see why I don't feel that I rested much this summer.
James Beldock, whom I have known for years from the Aspen Institute's Socrates Society and, more recently, from our investment in ShotSpotter, has posted on his blog about the thread in On Faith's Guest Voices about Irshad Manji and Project Ijtihad-- his comments are worth reading.
Irshad Manji is a featured Guest Voice on the Washington Post's Blog, On Faith, where she writes about Ijtihad-- the process of critical thinking in Islam which thrived for several hundred years until the end of the 12th Century-- in the context of Islamic inter-faith marriage and women's rights. The comment stream, 187 at last count, and my comment hasn't made it on to the thread yet, runs the gamut from knee jerk rejection of critical thought in Islam to thoughtful questioning of how the concept can be re-introduced into the mainstream of today's Islamic theological debate.
What is Ijtihad? Ijtihad (Arabic اجتهاد) is a technical term of Islamic law that describes the process of making a legal decision by independent interpretation of the legal sources, the Qu'ran and the Sunnah.
Based on my own research and thinking on this subject for the past five years, Ijtihad presents the only viable solution to the conflict between faith and reason that prevents many Muslims from embracing modernity and is at the root of the crisis in Islam today. There is historic justification in Islam for the validity of Ijtihad dating back to the Golden Age of Islam-- which happens to coincide with the Dark Ages of Western thought and the ascendancy of the Iberian Peninsula.
One commenter on the Post blog asks how do you "undoctrinate the indoctrinated"? The answer, in my view, is that you have to start with a process, and you have to capture the minds of progressive thinkers who are willing to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. It takes brave, committed people to get there. Thankfully Irshad Manji is one of them.
To learn more about Project Ijtihad: click here
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