A Moderate Muslim Questions the Ground Zero Mosque
There’s been a lot of great talk on Ricochet about the Ground Zero Mosque—so I would like to add another voice to that conversation, that of Asra Nomani, a Muslim by birth, and a moderate one too, if we follow the definition Claire gives.
In a column today, Nomani, pictured above, does not denounce the Ground Zero Mosque out of hand, but she questions it, noting that "We’re not being honest in our Muslim community about the violent ideology inside of our Muslim world that needs to be defeated....we have a serious problem inside our Muslim communities."
I think many at Ricochet would agree with Nomani when she writes, "We need an expression of institutional Islam that is moderate, progressive and liberal. We don’t have it yet."
Will we find it at the Ground Zero Mosque? She admits that she is as concerned about the mosque as conservatives are. She has seen firsthand the Wahhabist direction that many mosques in the US are moving in, like her own in Morgantown W. Va, and so she acknowledges that at Ground Zero, there is "potential for a 'good mosque' and a 'bad mosque.'"
Nomani, Indian by birth, is a moderate Muslim woman in the way we at Ricochet have come to define the term here and in other conversations. She is a modern American woman who is also a Muslim. She attends mosque regularly, but she doesn't wear the veil, and she is the single mother of a young boy.
What's more: she has seen the evil of radical Islam face to face. A former reporter for the Wall Street Journal, her good friend was Daniel Pearl--the American journalist who was brutally murdered in 2002 by terrorists in Pakistan.
Nomani herself has received death threats from radical Muslims for her bold and brave efforts--in writing and in deed--to move Islam in a more progressive direction (for instance, she's involved in a movement to end the gender segregation which occurs in a majority of American mosques).
I think we need more voices like Nomani's out there. If a major mosque is going to go up at Ground Zero, or anywhere else in this country, I hope that their leaders internalize the thoughts of people like Nomani as those mosques form their religious and intellectual identities.
- Comment (13)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (2)
Comments :
Re: A Moderate Muslim Questions the Ground Zero Mosque
Awesome, Emily! Thanks. I believe she's one of the women you wrote about last week, yes? Thanks for sharing this with us.
Re: A Moderate Muslim Questions the Ground Zero Mosque
Thanks Ursula -- yeah, she is! For the article I wrote, I interviewed her in person and was really impressed by her thoughtfulness and sincerity. Here's an excerpt of what she told me.
And the mosque began to practice gender segregation. At about that time, she gave up on her mosque and decided to go into journalism.
So she became a liberal-minded Muslim activist.
Jun '10
Re: A Moderate Muslim Questions the Ground Zero Mosque
America is like a good-natured old dog sleeping on the porch. There's no law against tugging on its tail, but the twentieth time you do it, you may get bit. Most dogs work overtime to be friendly, but sometimes you just have to give 'em some space.
May '10
Re: A Moderate Muslim Questions the Ground Zero Mosque
Ursula referred to an article you wrote - was it the Islamic Feminists article in the WSJ ? Since you interviewed her in person, I am wondering how you reconcile her opinion of the Raufs with all the other things we have read about them?
"The couple and other organizers, such as my friend Ameena Meer, an advertising executive who once dated Salman Rushdie, want a moderate imam at the mosque, and have found one in Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf.'
Is it your sense that Faisal Abdul Rauf is a moderate Imam?
Re: A Moderate Muslim Questions the Ground Zero Mosque
Hi Cindy -- you raise a great point. When I read that part of Nomani's article, it surprised me, given what we seem to know about Rauf. Inspired by your comment, I e-mailed Nomani and asked her how she reconciles what we've read about Rauf and her belief that he is a moderate. I haven't heard back yet.
For my part: I have to take the Reuel Marc Gerecht approach to this--which he wrote about in the TNR column that Claire linked to--I honestly don't know whether Rauf is a moderate. He certainly has affiliations with unsavory Muslim figures. On the other hand, as Gerecht writes:
But my instinct is that Rauf is an opportunist, more interested in publicity than radical ideology. I suppose that makes him pragmatic, whether or not he's moderate!
Jun '10
Re: A Moderate Muslim Questions the Ground Zero Mosque
Emily Esfahani Smith:
I think many at Ricochet would agree with Nomani when she writes, "We need an expression of institutional Islam that is moderate, progressive and liberal."
This really struck me. How often do you read on Ricochet that we need "an expression of X that is moderate, progressive and liberal?" Is the problem with institutional Islam simply that it is too far to the right of the GOP, and if they would only move sufficiently leftward their views would align with ours and we could be allies?
Another observation: from what I've read of the lives of the 9-11 hijackers, they don't strike me as particularly conservative or pious. Didn't they spend a lot of time at bars & strip clubs? Consider the profiles of two young Muslim men: one spends his Friday nights out partying and is too hung over the next morning to rise at dawn and say his prayers, while the other spends a typical Friday praying at a mosque and reading his Koran quietly at home. The latter is more conservative, but is he therefore more likely to support imposing Sharia, or to join Al-Qaeda?
May '10
Re: A Moderate Muslim Questions the Ground Zero Mosque
Thanks Emily. I look forward to hearing her response.
Re: A Moderate Muslim Questions the Ground Zero Mosque
Hi Joseph -- What an interesting observation! I'm not sure that Nomani was using the terms "progressive" and "liberal" in the day-to-day political sense--as in, Nancy Pelosi is a progressive liberal. From where Nomani sits, I think "progressive" means taking a flexible--not rigid, nor literalist--interpretation of the Koran, the hadith, and the general tradition/history of Islam. And by "liberal" I understood her to mean classically liberal--or, informed by enlightenment ideals, like reason, rather than doctrinaire ideology (as the 9/11 hijackers were). I could be wrong, but that's how I read her remark. What do you think?
Jun '10
Re: A Moderate Muslim Questions the Ground Zero Mosque
How I would love to see more conversations like those above. Rare and old fashioned, what was once meant by both a liberal conversation and an open mind: respect for reason within a big world tradition. And of course that is the cause for a good bit of the confusion with “liberal” Islam.
I agree with Joseph’s understanding of your average “Islamic” terrorist: none, to my knowledge, were even remotely religious. It would be better to compare these fellows to frustrated and angry anarchists as they are “for” next to nothing, including their own religious tradition, but they are “against” pretty much everything, including their own staid and hidebound religious tradition. In this modern sense of the term, they are more akin to “liberals” in their frustrated angst than to conservatives.
Jun '10
Re: A Moderate Muslim Questions the Ground Zero Mosque
Islam, amongst world religions, has had a domineering and heavy-handed respect for the historical tradition. There is an un-Western edge to it. Faisal Abdul Rauf is what a reasonable person could imagine a progressive would be on the edge of this rigid tradition; by these standards, the ecumenical edge of Islam. I imagine most Islamic clerics would probably think of Rauf as a bit too progressive for their tastes and this is certainly why he is getting sponsorship from the Obama administration --even considering his untoward political provocations after 9-11 (still, not as far as Van Jones in his paranoid accusations of US complicity).
So, if not Rauf, who? …or has that ship already sailed? Are we past having a dialogue with orthodox Islamic leaders? If that horse has not already left the barn (and let’s hope it hasn’t), there will need to be those with whom we in the West can have a dialogue with. So if not Rauf, who?
Still, like most, I believe the NYC mosque to be a bad and misguided idea…if not only for the bereaved of 9-11, than for the good of all American Muslims, as well.
May '10
Re: A Moderate Muslim Questions the Ground Zero Mosque
Emily, I'm also interested to hear why Nomani consider's Rauf to be a moderate. Also, I noticed in your comment above (comment #2), she said after 9/11 and Danny Pearl's kidnapping that she "realized we have to do something about the way Islam is expressed." The way Islam is expressed? As if the sentiment behind Daniel Pearl's beheading can be expressed in a moderate way.
Re: A Moderate Muslim Questions the Ground Zero Mosque
Tim -- I agree with you about Rauf. Within the Islamic community, he is certainly considered progressive--but whether that makes him a moderate by normal American standards is another issue. I suppose that he needs to speak and act politically as he toes the line between the Islamic community and the American community. That will make it hard to gauge how sincere any of his public statements about Islam are.
Katherine -- though I don't want to put words in Nomani's mouth, during our interview she spoke frequently and at length about the need to "interpret" Islam and the Koran in a liberal way that respects women's rights and upholds other Western values. To her, the radical Muslims are interpreting verses of the Koran and the hadith in the wrong way--by either using historically questionable sources, or applying an antiquated interpretation of those verses. So maybe by "expressed" she meant "interpreted."
May '10
Re: A Moderate Muslim Questions the Ground Zero Mosque
Emily, I take this as a very scary thought. If he were an ideologically committed "liberal" (religiously speaking) Muslim, what we would consider a moderate, then we might have at least some confidence of future programs and directions. But a pragmatist is a mere reader of the wind's direction. If the prevailing breezes (gales?) are coming from Saudi Arabia blowing oil money along with Wahhabism into the US, then a pragmatist will surely "go along to get along" and the result will be something we will rue.
I've been slow getting to it but I'm reading Mark Steyn's "America Alone" and am not finding it a source of consolation or encouragement vis a vis the GZM.