Ecumenical & Interfaith
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Current Events, Muslim Responses,
Christian Reactions

| Clash or alliance? | Dialogue | Rights issues | Being Muslim in U.S. |

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First Muslim addresses Scottish General Assembly

The Church of Scotland General Assembly for the first time has heard a Muslim speaker. On May 26. Mona Siddiqui, director of the University of Glasgow's Islamic studies center, told the Assembly that every person has a responsibility to make the world a better place and that God has taken a risk on humans, the only beings who must decide between right and wrong. Pakistani-born Siddiqui is a professor, a mother of three, and a regular contributor to interreligious life in Scotland. She is a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on the Islam-West Dialogue.

Behind the media attention to pray-in activity lie issues of change

Several pray-ins at mosques, during which a small group of women have attempted to pray at the back of the men's section of the mosque, have led to media attention. What is being said in the media by Muslims themselves? A blogger on a Muslim media watch web site cites women who want "a decent, clean, quiet space to reflect on their Lord, a space that does not pose a barrier to education or ideas, just as the male worshipers enjoy." They are frustrated by a "separate-and-unequal status." Comments about the protestors show ironies about their own situation. Sayyed Syeed of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) is quoted by the Washington Post as saying, "As the Muslim community in America has developed over the years, it's organized itself on the democratic basis of this country. ...The democratization of our community is one of our biggest achievements in America, but because of that, you now see communities heading in different directions with different trends."

Plans for New York City Muslim center encounter sharp speeches at hearing

New York City hearings can show sharp differences of opinion, sometimes expressed in crude language. This is what has happened as hearings have brought attention to a Muslim project known as Cordoba House. The proposed 13-story center will be three blocks from Ground Zero and has brought negative reactions from some 9/11 families and general approval from city officials. The plans recently drew opposition from a National Tea Party leader whose remarks referred to the Muslims' "monkey god"; he later awkwardly apologized to Hindus "who worship an actual Monkey God." The Cordoba House plans call for theater and performance space, classrooms and a fitness center in addition to a mosque. Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam behind the project (pictured) , says it will be an asset to the whole community, a step by Muslims who want to be "part of the solution" to terrorism. The Cordoba House concept is modeled after the 92nd Street Y, first founded for Jewish men and now a widely-used community and cultural center.

Federal court: U.S. cannot freeze a charity's assets without due process

An organization has a right to due process before its assets are frozen, according to a federal court ruling in Ohio. The ruling grows out of a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) after the U.S. Treasury Department blocked all property of KindHearts for Charitable Humanitarian Development, Inc. in 2006. The Department was investigating whether KindHearts should be named as a "specially designated global terrorist"; it had obtained no warrant based on probable cause and there had been noprior notice or hearing. Thereafter KindHearts had no access to its assets and it was a crime to do business with it, effectively shutting down its work. In 2009, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) and others asked the government to develop standards for charitable giving that would "provide clear standards for permissible charitable and development activity that are consistent with long-standing norms for humanitarian operations."

City council protests federal preemptive prosecution

The Common Council of Albany, New York, wants city councils around the country to join it in calling for an independent panel to review cases of Muslims convicted through preemptive prosecution, a tactic that uses sting operations. It charges that an FBI program targets Muslims not involved in criminal activity and prosecutes them when they are lured into a trap. One Albany council member said that "when you rule by fear, you have to have this monster under the bed. You have to have a reason for that fear" and Muslims have become that monster.

New travelers' security checks replace older method

A new security system for people flying to the United States uses intelligence information and assessment of threats to identify passengers who could have links to terrorism rather than imposing an extra layer of scrutiny on all passengers from selected countries. The most recent previous system had focused on 14 countries, most of them Muslim. Worries continue about the growing length of "no fly" listings, and it remains unclear whether the new system will affect people who have faced increasing difficulty in recent months, according to Tara Bahrampour, a Washington Post writer. Meanwhile, a lawsuit is now chipping away a wall of secrecy around the watch lists and how they have been formed.

Fiqh Council issues ruling on airport scanners

The Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA) has issued a ruling that forbids Muslims from going through full-body scanners in airports. Muslim groups are urging that Muslim passengers instead opt for a pat down by a security officer. “It is a violation of clear Islamic teachings that men or women be seen naked by other men and women,” the ruling says. “Islam highly emphasizes modesty and considers it part of faith. The Quran has commanded the believers, both men and women, to cover their private parts.” FCNA is an independent body established to provide guidance to North American Muslims in matters related to shari'ah law. It answers questions, writes papers, and holds conferences. FCNA is a "sister affiliate" of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Note that head of the Jewish Orthodox Union also says scanners violate modesty and that some Christian groups also have expressed concerns.

Obama names envoy to OIC

President Obama has named Rashad Hussain, a deputy associate counsel in the White House, to be his special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). A Yale law graduate, Hussain also has a master's degree from Harvard in Arabic and Islamic studies. The Obama administration is seeking a policy that moves away from counterterrorism as its main focus to one that includes partnerships with Muslim countries and communities in education, health, science and commerce.

Clash or alliance?

German bishop sees joint obligations\\

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Bishop Wolfgang Huber of the Evangelical Church of Germany told the faculty of divinity in Ankara, Turkey, "If we succeed in reading and understanding the Bible and the Koran from the viewpoint of a common global responsibility and our joint obligations, a new political hermeneutic could unfold that does not derive from the considerations and traditional thinking of one religion alone, but incorporates a perspective of dialogue and communication. This is the great task before us. By taking on this task, we are not only meeting the global responsibility of Islam and Christianity, but also fulfilling our God-given mandate to witness, each in our own contexts, to God's salvation and God's peace for the entire world."

Summit says Islam does not legitimize terrorism

A late March two-day scholarly conference in Mardin, Turkey, brought together diverse international Muslim theologians and academics to tackle the problem of violent extremism perpetrated by Muslims. It did so by reevaluating a fourteenth century Islamic legal verdict of Ahmad Ibn Taymiyyah concerning Mardin. The summit concluded that Ibn Taymiyyah's fatwa does not legitimize armed conflict, that Islam forbids indiscriminate killing, and that terrorists are committing murder.

The global Muslim population is mapped

"Mapping the Global Muslim Population: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World's Muslim Population" by the Pew Forum (issued in October 2009) provides information on the 1.57 billion Muslims in 232 countries of the world today. They represent 23% of the globe's people, Pew reports. Sixty percent are in Asia, while only 20% are in the Middle East/North Africa. A fifth of the Muslim population is in countries where Islam is not the majority; in some, nonetheless, Muslims are a sizable number. An online map allows examination of Muslim population by country/territory. Another online map shows the relative sizes of Muslim populations. The full report can be downloaded.

Catholic-Muslim dialoguers discuss the public arena

Dialogue among Catholics and Muslims is important because half of the world's people belong to these two groups, said the imam of the Islamic center in Rochester, New York, at a celebration of six years of a Muslim-Catholic Agreement of Understanding and Cooperation signed by the Greater Rochester Council of Masajid and the Diocese of Rochester. Louay Safi of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) asserted on the occasion that justice is necessary to promote peace and that it comes through the respect of human dignity. Francis X. (Butch) Mazur is the ecumenical officer for the diocese.

Since 1996, a Midwest Catholic-Muslim dialogue has been sponsored by the ecumenical and interreligious committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Islamic Society of North America. The latest meeting of the group, which gathers yearly, was held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in late October 2009. Participants discussed religion in the public square. They heard a number of presentations, noting convergences and common concerns. The latest publication from the group is Revelation: Catholic and Muslim Perspectives (ISBN #978-1-57455-630-8). Co-chairs are Sayyid Syeed (pictured) and Bp. Francis Reiss.

Muslim-Christian dialogue at Washington cathedral promotes peace

A summit of Christian and Muslim leaders at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. on March 1-3 had participants named from the Shi'a and Sunni Muslim communities and from the Anglican and Catholic Christian communities. Participants were international, and the Anglican/Episcopal group included bishops from Jerusalem and Nigeria-- locations where serious concerns about interreligious peace are a daily reality. Josiah Fearon (pictured) was one of these. Nonetheless, the dialogue engendered advance complaints from the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), which warned of a sidewalk demonstration by "those who have experienced that other side of Christian-Muslim relations, the martyrdom side." Its religious liberty director expressed concern that the dialogue may be "an exercise in capitulation and appeasement to Islamists."  The dialoguers spent their three-day time together strategizing on how to use their influence to promote peace. See their statement and information on the summit. A follow-up summit is planned.

Christian leader gives guidance on speaking to Muslims

Chris Seiple says friendships with Muslims are marked by respect and that, lacking respect, there is only a "transactional encounter." He offers ten words / concepts that do not communicate respectfully with Muslims: "clash of civilizations," secular, assimilation, reformation, jihadi, moderate, interfaith, freedom, religious freedom, and tolerance. Read what he says about each. The advice is notable in light of a National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) survey that indicates only a minority of evangelical Christians have contact with Muslims. Leith Anderson, NAE president, comments, "The large majority of Evangelical leaders who have not experienced Islam first-hand are either ignorant of Islam or are getting their information from secondary sources” He adds, “I assume that the reverse is also true; that a majority of Muslims are neither connected to nor informed about the faith of Evangelical Christians.”

A Pew survey conducted in August 2009 concluded that only 45% of Americans say they know someone who is a Muslim. Only a slim majority know the name (Allah) by which Muslims refer to God or the name of Islam's sacred text (the Qur'an). Pew says this is a modest increase since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

New poll links bias against Muslims, Jews among Americans

See an interview with Dalia Mogahed, head of Gallup's Muslim studies center. Mogahed recently reported that there is no consistent data on Americans' attitudes toward Islam over time. Nevertheless, polls/surveys are beginning to supply data about the Muslim community, the latest being Gallup's Religious Perceptions in America: with an In-Depth Analysis of U.S. Attitudes Toward Muslims and Islam.  Significantly, its findings (on page 18 of the report) conclude that prejudice toward Jews is strongly linked to prejudice toward Muslims. In a finding perhaps contrary to public expectations, frequent attendance at religious services is associated with less prejudice, not more. And the findings suggest that simply knowing a Muslim may not be enough, but knowing something about Islam itself is also needed. The new Gallup results echo a recent study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life that finds Muslims face the greatest discrimination (58% compared with 35% for Jews) of any group in the U.S. 

In its earlier survey, Muslim Americans: A National Portrait—the first study of a randomly selected, nationally representative sample of Muslim Americans—the Gallup center concluded that Muslim Americans are the most racially diverse religious group surveyed in the United States.The report, Gallup says, "captures the nuances of a Muslim American population that, although facing its equal share of challenges, remains a largely untapped resource of American talent."  The study found Muslim Americans consider themselves to be relatively thriving, as compared with their co-religionists internationally, but less content as compared with other Americans. The report says that 35% of the American Muslim population is African American. Only Mormons are more likely than Muslims to say that religion plays an important role in their lives. See a PowerPoint presentation of the report's key findings. See other poll results from the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies.

Many Protestant pastors say Islam is "dangerous religion" in a survey

A Southern Baptist-affiliated research group has reported that 45% of the pastors it surveyed by telephone agreed strongly that "Islam is a dangerous religion." Evangelical pastors were more likely to agree than mainline ones. Pastors with less education also agreed more strongly than those with a master's degree. The survey asked about Islam as a "dangerous" religion, not a "violent" one, and did not define the term.

Tariq Ramadan speaks in U.S.

Tariq Ramadan (pictured) has made his first public appearances in the United States since the U.S. State Department barred entry to the Oxford University scholar and Islamic activist in 2004. An American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) official said, "Ramadan is a welcome sign that the Obama administration is committed to facilitating, rather than obstructing, the exchange of ideas across international borders." Read or listen to a conversation with Ramadan on the Pew Foundation's web site.

Rights issues

Is FBI surveillance a Muslim issue, a security issue, or an interfaith one?

Since 2001, the FBI, Muslims, and Arab-Americans have worked to build trust relationships that protect the interests of mosques and communities as well as enabling sharing of information to fight terrorism. But the relationship has reached a low point in recent months. Ingrid Mattson (pictured left), president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), says that Muslims are wary, community groups find it harder to get volunteers, and Muslim charities are hobbled by feelings of suspicion that surround them. “This is a national security issue,” says David Schanzer of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security at Duke University. Chuck Warpehoski (pictured right), director of Ann Arbor, Michigan's Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice, says the FBI surveillance issue is an interfaith concern that could affect many. In November, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told an audience in Detroit that he had heard from Muslim- and Arab-Americans who feel isolated and denied the full rights of citizenship. Holder said he was committed to ensuring fair application of both the law and of constitutional protections. Whatever the case may be, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in eastern Missouri has said that its Muslim Rights Project will provide volunteer attorneys to Muslims questioned by law enforcement officers.

U.S. removes religious terms from national security document

Religious terms such as "Islamic extremism" are being removed from the central document outlining U.S. national security strategy. This is a significant shift for a document that has read, "The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century." The U.S. administration is also changing what it will talk about with Muslim nations.

UN adopts non-binding resolution against defamation of religion

In December 2009 the UN General Assembly approved a non-binding resolution deploring the defamation of religions and expressing concern that Islam is frequently associated with terrorism and human rights violations. The resolution's sponsor was the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Eliot Engel, a New York Democrat, noted that the UN has adopted defamation of religion resolutions annually since 2005 and that it was approved in 2009 by the smallest margin. He said the resolution "fails to solve the very real problems of religious discrimination" and "further promotes intolerance and human rights violations by curtailing individuals' rights to express their religious beliefs."  The OIC has pressed in the UN for a legally binding action that would criminalize words or actions deemed defamatory towards a particular religion.

Being Muslim in the U.S.

The driving force in suicide bombings isn't religion, study says

Analysis of a database at an Australian university discredits the commonly held wisdom that irrational religious fanaticism and personality are the principal causes of suicide bombings. Muslim sociologist Riaz Hassan writes that the driving force is not religion but such motivations as politics, humiliation, revenge, and retaliation; local religious fervor may have a role, not a global jihadi ideology. He says says that, In suicide bombing, one's own life is less valued than the group's collective interest.

Changing Course report rests on four pillars

A web site and a DVD have made a recent report popularly available. The report, Changing Course: A New Direction for U.S. Relations with the Muslim World, is said to be "the first senior, bipartisan, and interfaith U.S. leadership consensus on a comprehensive approach to improving U.S.-Muslim relations." Its proposed strategy rests on four pillars: "diplomacy to reduce conflict, technical assistance to improve governance, economic help to create jobs, and dialogue to build mutual respect and understanding." The 34 leaders who worked on the project include political figures but also Southern Baptist Richard Land; Catholic Denis Madden; Islamic Society of North America president Ingrid Mattson, and former AIPAC director Thomas Dine. It was initiated by Search for Common Ground and the Consensus Building Institute.

"Islamic Peacemaking Since 9/11" is released by U.S. Institute of Peace

As part of its series on Islam, the U.S. Institute of Peace has released "Islamic Peacemaking Since 9/11," written by David Smock (pictured) and Qamar-ul Huda, available in full online. The report says Muslim condemnation of terrorism/violence and Muslim promotion of interfaith dialogue/conflict resolution is as notable as Islamic militancy but less noticed. The report also covers the education of Muslim youth and reeducation of extremist Muslims.

Muslim conversions in prisons studied and described

An Everett, Washington newspaper describes the movement of prisoners to Islam. It quotes Vassar professor Lawrence Mamiya as saying that ten percent of all prison inmates have converted, but just one in five of these continue in the faith when released. Most of the inmate converts are African-Americans attracted by Islam's discipline and belief in equality. Muslims also protect one another in prison. Some charge that Muslims in prisons are radicalized, perhaps even coming to Islam "with the same gang mentality they had on the streets." Chaplains are both blamed and viewed as a solution.

Law enforcement and the Muslim community: a division of labor described

Both the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) have said in the same week that they will start programs to fight radicalization of Muslim youth in the U.S. A 32-page report released by MPAC on December 11, 2009, is entitled "Building Bridges to Strengthen America: Forging an Effective Counterterrorism Enterprise between Muslim Americans and Law Enforcement." It outlines theories about radicalization and terrorist recruitment among the U.S. Muslim community. And its writer says law enforcement authorities should focus on criminal activity, while the Muslim community deals with counteracting the radicalization process. Further, he cites a study that says many militants had been secular before they embraced radical Islam and typically lacked mainstream religious knowledge. Improving religious literacy would help fight radicalism, he says.

Undergirding marriages of U.S. Muslims requires changes in practices

Because African-American Muslims are often converts, they frequently do not have relatives who can help with the family-oriented Muslim marriage partner selection process. Because Muslims are not accustomed to conducting pre-marital counseling, immigrant American Muslim families are often not well prepared for the cultural changes they face and may become alienated from either Islam or the U.S. These are among the reasons that pioneering local mosque-based marriage programming has begun.

On this web site:

Specific resources: general Christian-Muslim resources that are not issue oriented

A Muslim letter: A Common Word Between Us and You and responses to it

A few Muslim web sites:

Islamic Society of North America: ISNA's web site

Islamic Circle of North America: ICNA's web site

Council on American-Islamic Relations: CAIR's web site

Muslim Public Affairs Council: MPAC's web site

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