avari | haroon moghul

Looking to Get Your Political Feet Wet? Muslim Candidate for NYC Comptroller is Looking for Volunteers

On behalf of Mr. Salim Ejaz, I am sending this notice out.  More information about Mr. Ejaz's candidacy, as a Democrat, for city comptroller, is available on his website.

A Call for Volunteers

Our historic election bid for the Comptroller, New York City is on a fast track to success.  It is for the first time that a Muslim is running for this city-wide position, which covers all the 5 boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx. With 800,000 Muslims and still more South Asians as a population base, we can reach out and reach all of New York.  The race is winnable!  We already have commitments from tens of thousands of voters.

The Primary is on September 15 and we racing against the clock. 

We have to urgently deliver our message to all the major mosques and for that the best time is at the Juma prayer.  We need volunteers, who can go to the mosques and address the worshipers about our historic candidacy. 

The volunteers can contact us at 516 448 3308 and we can coordinate with them as to the mosques they can conveniently visit.

Additionally. and very importantly, we need volunteers in regard to our massive Voter Registration Drive as we are in the process of distributing 50,000 plus voter registration forms.  These forms are being distributed during the Juma prayers.

For this we especially need ladies, because most women, although citizens, are not registered.  This means we overlook half our community, half our political power.  As we all know, voting is our birthright and if we do not exercise it, we have no political voice.  And without any political participation, we remain unprotected and vulnerable. 

Our candidacy is very strong because I have the most relevant professional qualifications and experience.  An unmatched record of performance, which sets me way above the other candidates.Please visit our website: www.Salejaz.com to read about our unparalleled achievements.

Please join us in making this historic bid into a historic victory. Step up to empower Muslims.  Vote, Volunteer and Contribute. Unquestionably, we need strong political representation, particularly in New York City, where over 800,000 Muslims reside.

This is a rare and golden opportunity to achieve the long-denied political empowerment without which a community stands vulnerable and unprotected.

City of Iranian Brass: Guest Posts and Other Hospitalities

I'm honored that City of Brass has chosen two of my recent essays on Iran; the first, If Scholars and Politics Collide, is up now.  Check it out and leave a comment, critical or otherwise (unlike some regimes, I will not deport you, nor confiscate your cell phone.) 

City of Brass is a wonderful platform, for me and otherwise, with deep roots in the evolution of the Muslim blogging reality.  For more on that, check us out at ISNA this Sunday, June 5th, at 11.30 a.m.  Great bloggers will share, discuss, laugh and engage, and we'll all have a chance to get valuable insights and ideas.  It's up to all of us to keep Muslims on the cutting edge.

The last time we fell behind, we had the 19th century.  So there.  Now you have to attend.

Next up, Dilip Hiro, an author whose work on the Middle East I respect and admire, has published a wonderful essay on Iran's political crisis and legitimacy deficit.  Check it out.

Also, on the left hand side of my page, you'll see a little advert featuring ICNYU Khutbahs.  Click there to subscribe and receive regularly updates -- perfect for home, office, car or confiscated cell phone.

Founding Member of MSA and IMANA Detained by Iranian Regime

Dr. Ebrahim Yazdi, a founding member of the MSA and IMANA, was apparently detained by the Iranian government.  ISNA, North America's largest Muslim organization, has called for the immediate release of all journalists and human rights activists. It is unclear whether Yazdi is still under arrest, or if he has been released into a hospital on medical grounds.

Candidate for Understatement of the Christian Year

Merrill Metzger, who worked for [Minutemen American Defense, a Washington State-based offshoot of the Minutemen movement] for six months just as it was getting started in 2007, said Ms. Forde had often traveled from Washington to Arizona with weapons. In March, while stopping over at his home in Redding, Calif., she presented a plan for the group to undertake, Mr. Metzger, her half-brother, said in a telephone interview.

“She was sitting here talking about how she was going to start an underground militia and rob drug dealers,” he said.

Mr. Metzger quit the group, alarmed, he said, by a number of things, including Ms. Forde’s demand for extreme loyalty, right down to the choice of cuisine.

“I had to take an oath, and part of the oath was that I couldn’t eat Mexican food,” he said. “That’s when red flags went up all over for me. That seemed like prejudice.”

From: "New Border Fear - Militia Violence."

Itching to Buy Me: From Amazon to Fawakih

Look left -- see the new link to my Amazon.com Wishlist?  Look right -- now you can follow long, involved conversations about Iran with my new "recent comments" bar.

Imam Latif and myself will be presenting a day-long program tomorrow (6/28), at Fawakih's Living the Hadith Program ongoing at ADAMS Center (which I have not yet visited), on communication strategies and media techniques, part of a set of modules we shall insh'allah be launching soon. 

Stay tuned for more.

It's all about empowering the American Muslim community with the ability to engage, to participate and to be heard.  We are taking the skills built at the Islamic Center and making them accessible to a national and perhaps, one day, international audience, to energize and contribute to this Ummah.

On Sunday, June 5th, I will be part of a panel called "Blogistan," at ISNA.  Be there!

The Death of Michael Jackson: By Zaid Shakir, Juan Cole, Zaheer Ali and More

On Yusuf Islam's (Cat Stevens') role.  Imam Zaid Shakir.  Zaheer Ali.  Juan Cole on Michael's conversion to Islam.  (Is he going to have a janazah?)  Zahed Amanullah.  Wajahat Ali.  Inna lillahi.

Review of Transformers II: Revenge of the Fallen: Wajahat Waxes Eloquent on a Waste-of-Space: Never Before Has a Non-Academic Title Enjoyed This Many Colons

All that, for just a link.  It's hilarious, insightful and germane to previous posts, because the lead actor is Shia Laboeuf.  I cannot spell his name.  I refuse to look it up.  If I have failed, correct me.

We Should Learn from Iranians

My friend and Columbia colleague Ajay Chaudhry has had his essay, Learning from Iran, published at HuffPost.  Check it out; it's a necessary corrective to a triumphalist narrative that always puts us, as Americans, at the center of things.  It's also a very powerful plea to learn what democracy can mean and how its iterations reflect the realities of the places around us.  Ajay works on Iran and knows his stuff.

Reza Aslan has a new essay up, courtesy of Goatmilk.

Remember these words -- that the elections were a "divine assessment"?  But what, backtracking!  Now, more and more, the evidence of fraud appears more obvious (You have to read that link).  Words that indicated perfect congruity and probity are being discarded for admissions of inconsistencies which, to any fair observer, shows that the regime said one thing -- did another -- and is now being called out for it. 

They said no recount because they are scared.  If there is a recount, the regime loses a massive degree of its legitimacy.  What they do not realize is they already have, and denying a recount makes it worse as time passes.  Just months ago, I was arguing that the future of the Middle East would be shaped by Iran, Israel and Turkey, as the dominant local powers; now that picture has changed suddenly and considerably.  Iran's government is more concerned with power for itself than with legitimacy for its system, which will eventually further destabilize the state and unfortunately has consequences for other Shi'i communities in the Middle East, notably Iraq.

Iran's allies in the region will correspondingly be weakened, or be forced to seek new sources of patronage.  Sometimes politics moves astonishingly quickly.

Over at Beliefnet, Aziz calls Tehran Karbala and cites the effect of Neda's death -- and if it is absorbed as a martyrdom, forget about regime legitimacy entirely -- on the popular and Islamic character of Mousavi's reform movement against the usurpation of the state. See also: We Are All Neda.  The resemblance of reformist rhetoric and symbols to the revolutionary events of the late 1970's gives the lie to any simplistic analysis of "secular inevitability"; namely, that this is a movement against Islam as opposed to a movement against a certain political class and the power and actions of its institutions.

What I'm Saying and What I'm Not Saying

Dear readers,

A number of readers have expressed concerns to me, directly or otherwise, regarding my position on the current crisis.  Some of those concerns are legitimate, and deserve to be heard.  Others, and this includes only a minority of persons, have been harsher in spirit and form, and make me wonder if the true intent is illumination and discussion.  To put it on the record, I am not out here to bash Shi'i Islam, or to trash figures to serve some kind of ulterior agenda.  Nothing I have typed would, if fairly considered, lead to even remotely that kind of conclusion.  I am making an academic analysis, and remember I am a doctoral candidate in Middle East and South Asian studies, and not a religious argument.  Of course, when religion and politics fuse, those distinctions become harder to make, especially if a regime identifies itself with Islam, such that any critique of that regime becomes a critique of Islam.

It is my conviction that Iran's democracy has been undermined and that the events in Iran represent a danger to the political and social progress of the region, Muslims more generally and even American Muslims specifically, insofar as they threaten to conflate our religion with a certain interpretation of that religion.  I believe in democratic procedures, and do not believe that any state has the right to throw the electoral process; I also believe that a harsh response to what is, by and large, crowds of young, protesting Iranians (many if not most fellow Muslims) is inappropriate, unwarranted, counter-productive and immoral.  States do not have the right to oppress their populations, and by no means do I limit my outrage to one country or one region; moreover, as a perceptive blogger noted, electoral procedures alone do not produce a deep democracy.  There must be institutionalized, politically sanctioned respect for individual freedom of conscience, speech and assembly in the face of majority rule.  I wince at the violation of these rights in America, and extend the same concern when they are denied elsewhere. 

Lastly, all of my positions are rooted in the diversity of the Islamic legal tradition and hence any critique of Iran's form of government does not represent a challenge to Islam but to one reading of Islam.  There are a number of great scholars and leaders, probably more of whom were Shi'i than Sunni, who were concerned by too close of an identification between religion and the exercise of state power.  I am persuaded of the wisdom of this position, especially by the lessons of history.  Recent events in Iran will likely only prove me right: the regime's harsh response to valid concerns of electoral fraud will either alienate the country from its religious tradition (and I am more worried about the religion than political power) or it will undermine the viability and stability of the state.  As such, I hope readers have enough appreciation of our legal and historical tradition to understand that Islam has never been simply the opinions of one faction.  I hope that we have enough respect for the dignity of fellow human beings that we enthusiastically support meaningful democracy, not just "majority rule," and the equal worth of all persons. 

That is why I favored Mousavi's candidacy, and why I judge events in Iran so important to the future of Muslim societies -- because if a compromise cannot be reached, it speaks to a dangerous narrowness and factionalism that will ultimately benefit no one.  In this spirit, I encourage debate and have learned a lot from, but also disagreed with, a number of commentators.  I respect every reader's right to post, and do not delete comments or remove postings, no matter how personally offensive.  That said, I am shocked that one reader has chosen to in effect declare that I am a hypocrite, which is essentially an act of takfir (I also know this person.)  That is not the kind of attitude that will further dialogue, and speaks not to meaningful and intense discussion, but a desire to prevent discussion or delegitimize points of view.  That is not what Islam represents to me, and I feel no Muslim, Sunni or Shi'i, should be so quick to judgment.  Our faith is big enough, strong enough and smart enough to include vastly different opinions on matters as widely diverse as politics, economics and culture.  Let us endeavor to preserve that strength.

It Was Fraud, Says Chatham House Study

Pepe Escobar's latest, and the Chatham House study that argues for obvious fraud.  Juan Cole has a deep breakdown, providing "definitive" proof of obvious rigging or interference -- and that a new election is necessary. 

But M.K. Bhadrakumar, as a contrary voice, feels the green protest has fizzled (he seems not to see that a protest movement can fizzle [I don't personally think it has] and yet have done enough damage to never be forgotten.)

Juan Cole's best paragraphs, in my humble opinion:

We could say that a little over 400,000 of these votes are not surprising, since that is the number that was hard line in 2005. But Ahmadinejad picked up over 700,000 votes after 4 years. The non-voters may probably mostly be counted as reformists. So again, Ahmadinejad needed all the non-voters in 2005 to switch to him in 2009 plus a large proportion of the Rafsanjani voters. It makes not sense.

And this outcome requires us to believe he picked up all those votes among people who deeply disliked him 4 years ago despite running against a favorite son from Azerbaijan! (And no, that Ahmadinejad speaks broken Azeri would not make Azeris vote for him any more than Latinos voted in 2008 for all those Republicans who speak good Spanish.)

As I had noted earlier, the official results ask us to believe that rural ethnic minorities (some of them Sunni!) who had long voted reformist or for candidates of their ethnicity or region, had switched over to Ahmadinejad. We have to believe that Mehdi Karroubi's support fell from over 6 million to 330,000 over all, and that he, an ethnic Lur, was defeated in Luristan by a hard line Persian Shiite. Or that Ahmadinejad went from having 22,000 votes in largely Sunni Kurdistan to about half a million!