avari | haroon moghul

The Next Islamists: Vali Nasr, Ben Simpfendorfer and Jumuah in Australia

My latest review essay has been published on Religion Dispatches: check it out.  In other news, I will be attending the Friday prayer at the masjid on Jeffcott Street in downtown Melbourne.  I heard from the halal kebab guy that there is a proper masjid in a suburb 30 minutes from the city.  But there is no tram that goes there.  Also, can someone explain to me why the temperature just dropped 30 degrees. 

Yesterday I saw a pair of fuzzy brown kangaroos, tiny ones, that were so cute that I had to stop myself from sneaking them back to the Hilton where I'm staying.  I plan on returning to the zoo later and kidnapping them.  They will become part of the community at the IC.  I will be doing a live radio interview with SBS this Sunday at 10am, Melbourne time.  It will be on the Parliament of World Religions.  I will be doing another interview, in Urdu, on Monday Dec 7th. 

For those of you who are interested in my panel, where I will be joined by Hussein Rashid and Wajahat Ali, we are on at 11:30am til 1:00pm, Room 208, on Monday Dec 7th at the Convention Centre.  Would love to see people there.

Eid Mubarak! (We're Going to NYU)

Eid prayers at 9am at the Islamic Center on Friday, November 27th.  Check the IC page for more information. (Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving, too.)

The Problems of American Muslims: From Identity to the Al-Jazeera Thing

There's a great essay on City of Brass, by one of my most favorite authors, Willow Wilson.  It's on American Islam, and the challenges facing our community in integration and identity.  This would, by the way, be a great topic for a khutbah (and last week's khutbah, at NYU, considered the themes of free speech, diversity and our relationship to the two.)  This is definitely worth the read: This is, and I mean no exaggeration, one of the most insightful pieces I've read in a while.  The great thing about Willow, I feel, is that she can very casually make tremendously deep insights which, by way of their presentation (in a human way, like philosophy or sociology from a very observant fiction writer), are far easier to approach and far more intriguing to think about.

I wanted to add three extending ruminations, which make sense after you read the essay. 

Firstly, that integration often happens by exclusion: Pop culture has integrated black Americans as leaders and heroes in part by the way of new enemies (now Arabs are quintessentially un-American, and so "all" Americans join up to fight their evil: Black and white Americans, together, even Latinos, though rarely in America is such integration so easy or so successful as it is portrayed in action movies to be.)  Who will be the new enemy that allows Arabs and Muslims to integrate?  (I mean this half-jokingly, because too often, this is how it happens: The civil rights movement may never have happened the way it did without the threat of a global Communism.) 

Secondly, that previous immigrant groups found it easier to integrate, to get a piece of the pie, because the pie kept expanding.  With new economic powers talking back to America -- or, and this is more significant, simply deciding their own path, see Brazil or China for example -- the pie is apparently not growing fast enough (the same can be said of the global economic crisis).  In that climate of stagnation, it's harder to simply make a living alongside everyone; this is something Latinos, when they are demonized, know all too well unfortunately.  Will it be harder for Muslims to feel fully integrated when the wider environment does not seem conducive to that, and we are marked, in an ever more connected age (see third point), by what others sharing our faith do in different contexts and countries?

Thirdly, it's easier for Muslims to self-isolate, and self-segregate, because of the internet, satellite TV and the like.  With blogs, al-Jazeera, twitter, digital media, podcasts, online sermons and movies, we can create alternate environments to get news and ideas alongside consuming the lightest fare from pop culture, which rarely makes civic or intellectual demands of people.  You can live side by side with people, but be sustained by other media (and other groups and minorities can do this, will do this and are doing this in places like Europe among others.)  Why go through the hassle of integration, or write angry letters to FOX, when you can just tune out?  Why hear the other side out?  Who cares what Democrats or Republicans think, when media is diversified to you and your group?

What do you think?

Berkeley and Columbia

Here's a link to my recent Berkeley panel on Islam and new media.  This one should be good for the duration.

Also, I spoke at Columbia's very fun Eid dinner last night; Bwog and Spectator covered it:

The reason for this, she said, was to offer a taste of the diversity of the Muslim community—the impetus behind the event’s namesake: “The Sights and Sounds of Muslims: Unity through Diversity.”

“Unity and Diversity can and must coexist,” said guest speaker Haroon Moghul, an American Muslim author and Columbia Ph.D candidate, in support of the mantra.

“If you have unity without diversity, all you have is oppression … if you have diversity without unity, you have no overarching framework. You’re saying that there’s nothing bigger than what you are.”

As anecdotal evidence of this coexistence, Moghul offered an account of a mosque service where he was accompanied by a Kosovo refugee who his family was hosting at the time.

“He grew up in a part of the world where it was normal for Muslims to be white, and I came from a part of the world where Muslims are normally brown,” he mused, recalling how his blond-haired, blue-eyed friend stood out among the crowd.

“And yet, the minute the prayer started, it was nothing new to him,” Moghul added.

This is made possible, he said, by way of a central body of rituals and prayer, the preservation of memory and a sacred geography where Mecca takes center stage.

And one more thing: Leaving for Australia on Monday!!!

More

Abed Bhuyan writes on Eboo Patel's blog, the Faith Divide, contributing an essay on the ongoing controversy.  Tunku Varadarajan must be so happy to see his paper go so far afield; all the same, it's generated positive interest alongside the hate and brought forward a number of considered and worthwhile essays.  It's also showing that more reasoned voices can participate in an ongoing conversation, which is a welcome development in the making over the past several years.

Vote for Zeba Khan

This is amazing.  Make sure to vote for Zeba Khan -- it's a big win for American Muslims, and for the cause of diversity more generally (should I now bold "diversity" every time I reference it?).

The Myth of Homogeneity and the Danger of Diversity: Me and the Wall Street Journal

James Taranto, a writer at the Wall Street Journal, argues in a blog that my essay on Tunku Varadarajan's "Going Muslim," and NYU's subsequent reaction to the escalating crisis (including an Islamic Center response called Harmonyu: In the NYUNews article, I'm next to Rabbi Sarna) demonstrates intellect giving way to ritualized emotion.  That, the author argues, is a problem: "Diversity" is a "sham". 

Why does it bother the author that Muslims might be concerned by the way a member of the administration responded to valid alumni concerns?  In fact, Taranto seems unaware that the cause of the Islamic Center's concern was not Varadarajan so much as Dean Cooley, indicating how closely he read my article and how much more intently he was fixated on scoring ideological points.  But even so: If speech is free, he should not protest so much. 

Diversity is a value and means by which oppressed and marginalized peoples ensure their voice is heard, and is as such not so different from democracy: By celebrating the value of diversity, we ensure that all persons can be included in a dialogue.  That does not mean it is the only or highest value, but rather that it must be considered.  There is an academic value to listening to all sides, and anyone who thinks otherwise is misunderstanding social realities -- if there were no such value to engaging individuals with the realities that shaped them, the universal franchise would be meaningless.  What benefit academic freedom when, as I walk into the class, I know the Professor hates, mocks and derides who or what I am?  How can I ensure I am being graded fairly, treated dispassionately and engaged properly?

It's Still Going (Muslim) + Voting, and Democracy, Which Is

The controversy has now made it to Susan Campbell's Hartford Courant page.  Good stuff.  Stupid me, I forgot to append my blog name & URL to the bio that appears on the actual page of my article.  That's called thinking ahead.

Congrats to Muslimah Media Watch, Slice of Lemon and everyone else who was nominated for this year's Brass Crescent Awards.  (I'll just pretend like I don't care that none of my readers care.)  I feel like Portugal at the start of the early modern: Strong out the gate, and then Portu-who? a century-and-a-half later.

Go vote.

More on and Addressed to Tunku Varadajaran

Following up on the post below: Synethizing has blogged on the article; I made it onto USAToday's Faith and Reason blog (in reaction to "Going Muslim") and there was an older post on DailyKos referencing that same infamous article.  In all this, let me clarify where I stand very clearly: I am totally in favor of free speech.  I don't believe the Professor should be censured, punished or fired, as some persons have called for.  Freedom of speech is the cornerstone of democracy and intellectual engagement. 

All the same, that freedom gives me the right to call him out as a blowhard, making up facts and claims with no plausible basis (such as Muslims are more bellicose than others); I am also pleased to see the highest levels of NYU administration call out offensive rhetoric for what it is, and underline the importance of welcoming all students, regardless of faith -- while rightly defending the principle of academic freedom.  For if students are intimidated or marginalized, afraid to speak their minds, what is the point of academic freedom?  Freedom for whom, and to what end?

I also wish to note to the Professor: Be careful what emotions you cultivate, and in whom. You may think from your perch in academia and at Hoover that you are above the fray. But ultimately hate-mongering such as yours activates an indiscriminate ignorance, which lashes out at anything foreign -- and in the minds of the haters, you look foreign, just as Muslim as me. (Sorry to break it to you.) 

After 9/11, some of the first persons attacked in retaliation were Sikh. The attackers didn't care to confirm the religion of the attacked. They wanted revenge. This is why, when Muslim scholars uncritically reference Jews or Christians, their actions are so inexcusable: Because while they themselves may be passive and academically engaged, their rhetoric inflames persons for whom violence is an easy out.

Be more responsible.

Going Muslim: NYU, Forbes and the Politics of Religion

NYU Professor Tunku Varadajaran's article, Going Muslim, has generated quite a lot of controversy; see this DailyKos summary for reactions to the article by NYU Muslims and other persons, as well as the reaction given by the NYU administration.  I have summarized the controversy at ReligionDispatches; what upsets me is not so much the article -- which was offensive enough -- but the reaction of a senior administration member, who seemed uninterested by Muslim concerns.