Islam

The return of the caliphate?

January 14, 2006 By dpulliam

This morning’s Washington Post contained an example of something I believe we need to see more in America’s newspapers. Karl Vick of the Washington Post Foreign Service details in an A1 story a current hot issue in Muslim communities regarding the ground swelling of support for the return of a caliphate to unite believers of Islam.

How often do Americans hear terms like caliphate or khalifa and names like Ataturk or Hizb ut-Tahrir? We’re used to simpler terms like radical and extremist that do not come close to explaining the historical and religious background surrounding the United States’ recent military actions in the Middle East. Part of this is due to the nation’s leaders, but that does not absolve journalists and the organizations for which they work.

Here’s what I’m talking about:

Yet the caliphate is also esteemed by many ordinary Muslims. For most, its revival is not an urgent concern. Public opinion polls show immediate issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and discrimination rank as more pressing. But Muslims regard themselves as members of the umma, or community of believers, that forms the heart of Islam. And as earthly head of that community, the caliph is cherished both as memory and ideal, interviews indicate.

That reservoir of respect represents a risk for the Bush administration as it addresses an issue closely watched by a global Islamic population estimated at 1.2 billion. Already, many surveys show that since the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, Muslims almost universally have seen the war against terrorism as a war on Islam.

“Why do you keep invading Muslim countries?” asked Kerem Acar, a tailor in central Istanbul. “I won’t live to see it, and my children won’t, but one day maybe my children’s children will see someone declare himself the caliph, like the pope, and have an impact.”

For news purposes, the article focuses on the “what if factor.” The headline — Reunified Islam: Unlikely but Not Entirely Radical — is lame and doesn’t represent the true nature of the story very well, but I should not complain as I am a less than average headline writer and the more appropriate “history of why Muslims are not united” would not draw many eyeballs.

Tmatt has for months called for newspapers to do this type of background story — magazines tend to be a bit better — and while this article is a good step in the right direction, it is limited by its narrow focus. Perhaps a series of articles is justified at this point? With key political events occurring in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan this month, Americans would be well served to know the historical backgrounds and the significance of the events.

The final paragraphs of the Post story point to the future and deserve a significant follow-up, somewhere:

“Bush is saying they would establish a caliphate from Spain to Indonesia,” said Abdullatif, the group’s spokesman in Copenhagen. “The establishment of the caliphate will come by those who work hard.” He said Hizb ut-Tahrir members in Iraq were working to coax a united front with insurgent groups.

As the Hizb ut-Tahrir meeting in Copenhagen broke for evening prayers, Muziz Abdullah, an affable native of Lebanon, surveyed a hall still with standing-room only. “Ten years ago, when I started, it was totally unrealistic to think there could be a caliphate,” he said. “But now, people believe it could happen in a few years.”

Could there be a caliphate representing Muslims from Spain to Indonesia in the next few years? If it were somehow to happen, it would be the most significant event of the century so far. It’s certainly something worth following.

Filed Under: Godbeat, Islam, Journalism, Politics, Religion, Social Issues, World

Happy holidays?

January 9, 2006 By mollie

meccakids2 While the population of the country is over three-quarters Christian, it is not surprising that there are regions where other religions predominate or are large enough to make a significant impact.

The Muslim student population in Dearborn, Michigan, is a case in point.

Detroit Free Press reporter Peggy Walsh-Sarnecki, who handles the education beat, shares the details. Apparently 35 percent of the kids are expected to be absent on Tuesday so they can celebrate Eid al-Adha. But because the school district mistakenly thought the three day festival began on Wednesday, the school district is going to be out $100,000. Such funding cuts occur if attendance is below 75 percent on any day.

The article is largely about the ramifications to the school district if attendance lags, but the reporter interviewed Muslims and provided the religious context for the day:

“Even if there is school, my son will not be attending,” said Ghada Makki, who has a 15-year-old son, Nour, at Fordson High School. “We come to the mosque, we pray, we celebrate with family.”

“It’s haram to work on our Islamic holy days,” Makki said Friday, using the Arabic word for prohibited. “It will be a sin to do something that is haram. Even my husband, he owns a shop. He will close.”

Eid al-Adha, known in English as the Feast of Sacrifice, marks the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca and is one of the two most important Muslim festivals each year. The other is the Eid al-Fitr, celebrating the end of the fast of Ramadan.

On Eid al-Adha, Muslims around the world celebrate in solidarity with pilgrims in Mecca, recalling the ancient patriarch Abraham’s obedience to God and his sacrifice of a ram.

The exact date the festival begins each year is based on the appearance of the new moon over Mecca, to coincide with those making a pilgrimage there.

It is interesting to see how government schools accommodate various religious holy days. It’s also not hard to see how some religious devotees might prefer running their own private schools over navigating the bureaucracy. Certainly that explains the large Roman Catholic and Lutheran parochial school systems in this country.

Either way it’s important for reporters on the education beat to look at how students celebrate their holy days on a government calendar that is, of course, largely devoid of sacred time.

Filed Under: Catholicism, Godbeat, Islam, Journalism

Is “secularism” the goal in Iraq?

January 3, 2006 By TMatt

new iraq flag Here we go again. It seems that, in the current post-election environment in Iraq, the United States is pulling for “secularism,” whatever that means.

In the Islamic world, this quickly leads to hard questions, such as: Is Allah in favor of “secularism”? Is “secularism” the opposite of “Islam”? Can one be a “secular” Muslim, in the current faith-charged reality of the Middle East? Is a “moderate” Muslim the same thing as a “secular” Muslim?

Just asking. I could go on and on.

Meanwhile, over here, most Americans — or, at least, those who support the war — would say that we are fighting for “freedom,” the “rule of law” and similar concepts. But does this equal “secularism”? Does any of this square with the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and that tricky Article 18 that insists on saying that:

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

I thought of all of this while struggling to understand the story by reporter Borzou Daragahi in the Los Angeles Times, the one with the pair of headlines that said: “Sunnis Bargain for Iraq Role as Allawi Fades: Ascendant Shiites and Kurds hint that a deal to form a new governing coalition may exclude the U.S.-favored secular politician.”

flag iraq old Try to follow the labels through the following maze. There are plenty of words that imply faith connections or anti-connections. I have, for some time now, been saying that I wish that MSM journalists would take the time to give us some info on how these terms that sound religious actually relate to religious beliefs and practices. Then we can talk about how these words relate to “religious liberty” and other idealistic concepts that many people insist are “Western” and, thus, “secular.”

Hang on. This gets complicated. And confusing.

The emerging political alliance lumps together Shiites, Kurds and Islamist Sunni Arabs — and excludes secular Iraqis, hard-core Sunni Arab nationalists and those sympathetic to the Baath Party of ex-dictator Saddam Hussein. After all but enacting a cease-fire around the recent elections, Iraq’s mostly Sunni Arab insurgents have escalated their bombings and assassinations targeting officials of the Shiite-dominated government, U.S. troops and foreigners in Iraq.

Got that? It sure doesn’t sound like “secularism” is on the rise, does it? Come to think of it, would the White House say that the purpose of this war to sell “secularism” to the Islamic world?

Just asking. I don’t think that is a winning proposition.

Has anyone seen a story that helps explain the faith content of all of this?

Filed Under: Godbeat, Islam, World

When is religion news “religion” news?

December 29, 2005 By TMatt

The 2005 end of the year wrap-up stories are starting to bloom. With New Year’s Day falling on a Sunday — massive newspapers — look for tons then.

You will see top 10 lists for news stories and top 10 lists for “religion” news stories. Here at GetReligion, we are interested in both and, especially, in the overlap between these lists. This was the subject of my Scripps Howard News Service column this week. Veteran GetReligion writers will, I confess, hear an echo of the blog in the main theme. Click here if you want to see that.

I started with the Palestinian suicide bomber at the sandwich stand in Hadera, Israel.

Are events such as this “religion” news?

This question matters because, week after week, journalists struggle to describe conflicts of this kind between the extremists many now call Islamists and other believers — Jews, Christians, moderate Muslims, skeptics and others. These events are haunted by religion, yet it is faith mixed with politics, history, ethnicity, economics, blood feuds and many other factors.

I am not sure it would help readers if the press called these events “religion” news. If might stir even hotter emotions. Do we need to know the religious identity of every victim or have we reached the point where journalists can assume that we know? When are rioting thugs merely rioting thugs? When are police just police?

I asked these questions again because events related to terror, Iraq (photo), Israel, etc., were missing in the Religion Newswriters Association’s top 10 list of religion news stories in 2005. Click here to get to the RNA home page, which appears to be crashed at the moment. I will try to post the direct link to 2005 RNA list later.

Meanwhile, it is interesting to see the role that faith plays in this Peggy Noonan column about the top five news events of the year. It’s from the Wall Street Journal, of course.

Seen any other interesting Godbeat lists you want to point out?

Filed Under: Godbeat, Islam, Journalism, Social Issues

Tips for understanding the mind war

December 20, 2005 By dpulliam

For journalists — or anyone for that matter — looking to understand the conflict in the Middle East between the West and the Islamic fundamentalism, take a look at this book review in Sunday’s Washington Post titled “The War for Muslim Minds,” and then consider picking up one or more of these books.

The review by the RAND Corporation’s Bruce Hoffman encompasses three recent books on the minds of Muslims. The heaviest of the three, Fawaz A. Gerges’s The Far Enemy, moves along the theory on “why Jihad went global.” Khaled Abou El Fadl’s Wrestling Islam From the Extremists deals with the more well-known theory that Islam has been hijacked by highly charismatic characters, while Fred Halliday’s 100 Myths About the Middle East seems to be a quick guide worthy of a Christmast-time airplane ride (it’s also only about $10). I should note that I have not read any of these books, but that is no the point of this post.

While masterfully quoting Sun Tzu, Hoffman underscores the point I’ve been trying to make about journalists, only pointing towards the United States’ counterterrorism strategy:

Today, Washington has no such program in the war on terrorism. America’s counterterrorism strategy appears predominantly weighted toward a “kill or capture” approach targeting individual bad guys. This line of attack assumes that America’s targets — be they al Qaeda or the insurgency in Iraq — have a traditional center of gravity; it also assumes that the target simply needs to be destroyed so that global terrorism or the Iraqi insurgency will end. Accordingly, the attention of the U.S. military and intelligence community is directed almost uniformly toward hunting down militant leaders or protecting U.S. forces — not toward understanding the enemy we now face.

This is a monumental failing because al Qaeda’s ability to continue this struggle is predicated on its capacity to attract new recruits and replenish its resources. The success of U.S. strategy will therefore ultimately depend on Washington’s ability to counter al Qaeda’s ideological appeal — and thereby break the cycle of recruitment and regeneration. To do so, we first need to better understand the origins of the al Qaeda movement, the animosity and arguments that underpin it and indeed the region of the world from which its struggle emanated and upon which its gaze still hungrily rests. Each of the three books reviewed here provides a good start in this essential, though lamentably belated, process.

“In my conversations with former jihadis, one of the critical lessons I have learned is that personalities, not ideas or organizations, are the drivers behind the movement,” writes Gerges in his book, implicitly removing the importance of religion in this international conflict.

Why is this important to the average journalist? Most of us are not in the Middle East covering elections and suicide bombings.

Here’s why: the Post also on Sunday carried an article title “Muslim Leader Forges Interfaith Accord” by Fredrick Kunkle of a “popular Imam,” Yahya Hendi, who is supposedly boosting Islam throughout Maryland and beyond.

It’s a fairly straightforward middle-of-the-local-section religion story except for the fact that he’s a cologne-splashing Imam who is convinced that Islam, Judaism and Christianity are more similar than different. Fair enough character, but any reporter digging past the same-day feature story written by Kunkle must pitch some serious questions at Hendi who believes he is the Arabic version of John the Baptist. And to do that one must have at least a primer in what Muslims today believe and it is about as far away from monolithic as you can get.

Then there is the international story of Muslims flocking to the polls in Iraq and the convening of Afghanistan’s first parliament in more than 30 years. What story is more important these days?

These historical moments will receive their due treatment in lengthy magazine pieces followed by thick books, but for the journalist grinding out daily news stories on these dramatic events — whether for the metro section or from the Green Zone — a background in the minds of the Muslims will be crucial for accurately understanding the story.

Filed Under: Books, Islam, Journalism, Politics, Religion, Social Issues, World

The hearts of peaceniks and terrorists

December 16, 2005 By dpulliam

What to say about the shocking lack of coverage of the kidnapping of the four members from the Christian Peacemakers Teams? It’s shaping up to be a deeply compelling story that carries serious ironies that are just begging to be explored. Mollie here at GetReligion first tackled this subject on Saturday and little has been written in the mainstream press since then

Morning Edition covered the group on Dec. 1 along with this BBC report on the group, and today the Canada Free Press ran a strongly opinionated piece titled “The truth about the Christian Peacemakers Teams.” Here’s what it says (and it mirrors what Mollie said):

Since CPT vaulted into the headlines of the major media throughout the world, very little has been written or portrayed about the group in the mainstream media. The media seems to be content just to mention the group’s name and refer to those that were kidnapped as “peace activists”. From exposure to the mainstream media alone, people are not likely to know any more about CPT than they do about the Swords of Righteous Brigade, a group than no one knew existed until the late November kidnappings.

Even when it seemed that every major terrorist group in the world, from Hamas to al Qaeda, appealed for the hostages’ release, the media did not think it important to look into the group that was garnering so much sympathy from organizations that take so much delight in blowing up civilians.

Mollie called for reporters to dig into the hostages’ motivations and CPT’s “Quaker-infused theology” and I would second her in that. Like we’ve said in the past, understanding the root motivations of groups like CPT or these terrorists goes a long way in breaking through the mist that is Middle East violence.

Kirk Wattles commented on Mollie’s post that “Quakers and Mennonites have generally been a distinct minority with a radically different take on what it means to be Christian.” And here’s more:

Christian Peacemaker Teams’ activities in Iraq are labeled absurd and foolish by many in the mainstream, but they draw from a long tradition (three to four centuries, anyway). And in other instances, for example in the movement to abolish slavery, such activities were often heaped with scorn (and sometimes violence) by other people calling themselves Christian.

You ask why coverage of this countercurrent is so weak. I think there’s a divide in the conception of what Christianity is about, the media tacitly recognize this and tend to avoid it because the secular outlook has no easy way to deal with such a deep conflict over issues. …

But elements to be considered include the Constantinian shift in the 4th century, the emergence of dissident sects during the Protestant reformation, the post-enlightment Church-State detente, and the industrial (and post-industrial) organization of warfare in the last century.

Is this the case? I say more digging is necessary to know for sure, but a solid grounding in history and Christian philosophy is is a good place to start.

Filed Under: Islam, Journalism, Religion, Social Issues, World