I thought back to an awkward experience I had as an undergraduate student applying for a job at my university. When I handed the receptionist at the student union my Social Security card, a required form of identification, she told me she needed my passport as well. Surprised, I questioned the need for it. She brought over her supervisor, who glanced at my hijab—a headscarf worn by many Muslim women—and asked, "Aren't you an international student?" "No," I said. "I'm an American citizen. I was born in New Jersey." Her mouth dropped open and she stammered, "Oh, you're not a foreigner?"
...That's why Obama's decision to visit a Muslim country within the first 100 days of his presidency was such a significant moment for me. Hearing his unwavering, unapologetic message to the Turkish Parliament filled me with pride: yes, he told the world, Muslim Americans exist, and our existence has enriched—not impoverished—American culture. His words mirrored what I have long sought to convey to other Americans: that you can be both a devout Muslim and a patriotic American.
I can only hope my fellow citizens get the message. When many Americans see Muslims like me, they tend to define us as something non-American, which forces us to choose between our religion and nationality. As long as Islam is equated with a foreign culture, as opposed to a faith like any other practiced here, then our mosques and our schools and our headscarves will continue to be perceived as a rejection of "American culture." This idea of Muslims as "other" surfaces every time someone like my friend Kathy, a veil-wearing Muslim American, is told to "go back home" when she and her daughter eat at Subway, or when a man plows his truck into a Tallahassee, Fla., mosque to remind Muslims they're not safe in this country...
I have learned to go out of my way to confront the stereotypes brought to the surface by my headscarf. At times, that has meant speaking out in public forums. At other times, it has meant striking up a conversation with anyone who passes by as I walk my baby through our neighborhood. I have learned through personal experience that interaction and kindness can go a long way toward knocking down barriers.
Obama's gestures make me feel empowered to do more. His words and deeds have given me cause to believe that someday soon, people will look at me and, instead of seeing a woman with a headscarf, they'll see another American, just like them.
Hadia Mubarak is a doctoral student of Islamic studies at Georgetown University and a panelist for the Washington Post/NEWSWEEK On Faith Web site.
---"As American as Apple Pie," Newsweek (5.4.09)
If you are moved by the feelings of this sensitive, thoughtful American, you are right to react that way. And Ms. Mubarak is quite representative of Muslims in America. She is not an exception. You can readily tell from her heart-felt remarks that she identifies as an American, even if other Americans make that difficult--and she longs to be embraced by the broader, diverse American public as part of another rich tapestry in the expansive fabric of American society.
A recent e-mail message that came to us via a group distribution depicted the Muslim faith--and therefore Muslim-Americans--in misleading, disparaging, unjust terms. As someone who studied the Islamic faith (among others) as a young man in his search for God, I was quite sure that e-mail representation was misleading and unfair. But I did some google research of reliable sites which provided a useful refresher and update.
Much of the problem and the misrepresentation related to the meaning of the word "jihad" and its implications. The principles of jihad are much misunderstood by most non-Muslims, and particularly by Westerners in this time of "jihadist" terrorism. And like most Americans, the author of that e-mail badly misrepresented its principal meaning and implications for religious and civil life among most Muslims today.
The word jihad means "struggle," and it is commonly used in the Quran and Muslim religious life in the sense of "striving in the way of Allah [God]" or the "struggle to improve oneself and society." But tradition, and the religious sayings of the Muslim Hadith, do ascribe to Muhammad a distinction made between the Greater Jihad and the Lesser Jihad.
The Greater Jihad is the "jihad of the soul," and, as the Muslim scholar Mahmoud Ayoub is quoted, "The goal of true jihad is to attain a harmony between islam (submission), iman (faith), and ihsan (righteous living)." Some point out that the Greater Jihad can be compared spiritually with the struggle that Christians undertake in resisting sin: temptation, selfishness, pride, disbelief, etc. Others add that it is about holding fast against any ideas and practices that run contrary to Muhammad's revelations (Quran), sayings (Hadith) and the examples set by how he lived his life (Sunnah). This is the most meaningful principle of jihad in the active religious and community life of the vast majority of Muslims, including Muslim-Americans. It is not in any way related to any kind of armed conflict. This is the principle of jihad passionately explained to me and embraced by an understandably distressed Muslim-American classmate after 9/11.
On the other hand, the Lesser Jihad addresses the circumstances, conditions and rules for defense and warfare under Islamic law. And yes, this is the jihad you think you understand. But do you? It may be declared against apostates, rebels, highway robbers, violent groups, non-Islamic leaders or non-Muslim combatants. And it doesn't have to include armed conflict; it could be acts of civil disobedience. The rules do not allow killing women, children and non-combatants, nor damaging cultivated or residential areas. Modern Muslims have taken the further step of revisiting the interpretation of Islamic sources, and now stress that jihad is essentially defensive warfare aimed at protecting Muslims and Islam. And all authorities agree it includes armed struggle against persecution and oppression.
You may have noticed that the Islamist jihadists that have authored the terrorist acts in the US and across the world have acted and lived notably outside the Islamic rules governing a defensible act covered by the principle of the Lesser Jihad. That is because they operate outside both the civil and spiritual boundaries of mainstream Islam. They are renegade terrorist elements and a law unto themselves. They certainly do not represent the vast majority of Muslims. Now, isn't it important to recognize that?
It might also be important to mention that the Quran clearly reflects Muhammad's admonition to respect and honor other "people of the book." Narrowly speaking, he meant people of the other Abrahamic faiths: Jews and Christians. Sufi poets of the Middle Ages occasionally referred to "the Christ" in respectful, holy terms. And today most mainstream Muslims extend that respect to other faiths as well. But if Islamist extremists do not honor that element of the Quran either, can we be surprised? For they rationalize their criminal behavior, in part at least, as a response to Middle Ages and latter day Christian Crusaders--a reference to the "holy wars" initially prosecuted by "Christians" who had lost any meaningful sense of Christian identity and purpose, and the more modern expressions of Western hegemony. Ironically, then, we now have Islamist extremists who have lost any meaningful sense of Muslim identity and purpose prosecuting their armed response to the Crusades and Western dominance with their self-stylized version of jihadist "holy war."
Now, remind me why it is that the criminal agenda of these miscreants has anything to do with how we view and respond to honorable Muslim-Americans who respect people of other faiths?
But you still remain concerned about language in the Quran, don't you? You likely find it difficult to reconcile the more bellicose, violent or punitive elements of the Quran with the more spiritual elements of it--and then you wonder how the behavior of observant Muslims might be influenced by that more troubling language? I suggest that you have the best answer to that concern right in front of you--if you are looking in the mirror, that is. I suggest you consider how you would reconcile the war-prone, vengeful, violent and punitive elements of the Old Testament with your modern understandings about spiritual life--and explain why non-Christians and non-Jews should not be concerned about how an observant Christian or Jew might be influenced by them today. Should they be concerned that you might be more likely to take an offending, wayward daughter to the gates of the city to be stoned, or expect them to? Or more likely to wage war against a nonbelieving country? (And remember, as we have noted, that New Testament "Christians" have also done that--and it was Muslims who we waged war against.) These are what are called rhetorical questions, of course--so why am I concerned about your answers?
So, if we can possibly carry reason, fairness, and Biblical or Christian principles as our standards, then can't we, shouldn't we, make the simple and fair distinction between terrorist criminals who call themselves Islamic Jihadists and the Muslim mainstream that act and deserve to be treated like the respectful neighbors they are--and especially here in America. I would think so.
In closing, it is worth noting again that in practice the Islamic principle of the Lesser Jihad, armed holy conflict, is not a principle that finds active expression in mainstream Islamic communities in America and the West. It is the Greater Jihad, jihad of the soul, that focuses their lives. Like Ms. Mubarak, all the Muslims I have known or now know have represented their faith with thoughtfulness and kindness, and their American citizenship with pride.
First written: May 2009
© Gregory E. Hudson 2009
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