Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Nazim

The Ikhwan and the Salafist political parties might be making electoral gains in the Middle East, but it appears a growing chorus of religious scholars is determined to test their commitment to the democratic ideals they so ardently espouse.

Among the scholars who are refusing to dance to the Ikhwan’s tune are Habib Ali Al-Jifry and Shaykh Ali Gomaa. Shaykh Ali Gomaa is Egypt’s Grand Mufti, a position that carries the weight of centuries of Muslim legal history. Habib Ali, on the other hand, is a rare type of public intellectual, admired by many Muslims both in the East and the West for the clarity of his religious commitments.

Masjid Al Aqsa

A few weeks ago they visited the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on separate occasions. In so doing, they defied a fatwa that declares all visits by non-Palestinains to Al-Aqsa as “haram” on grounds that it leads to the “normalization of relationship with the state of Israel.”

The author of the ill-tempered opinion is none other than the Muslim Brotherhood’s most senior religious scholar, Shaykh Yusuf Qaradawi. Qaradawi lives in Doha, Qatar where his weekly Al-Jazeera television show gets a fairly large reception in the region.

Not surprisingly, the newly elected members of Egypt’s parliament, particularly those belonging to the Freedom and Justice Party, dubbed the Mufti’s visit to Jerusalem “a crime” and “a catastrophe.” The architects behind the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt were so outraged they accused the Mufti of committing treason.

Members of Hamas, cut from the same ideological cloth as their comrades in the Muslim Brotherhood, echoed the opinion of Shaykh Qaradawi. Mousa Abu Marzook said Mufti Ali Gomaa’s trip “served to legitimize Israel’s control of Palestine.”

Shaykh Ali Gomaa was reluctant at first to get into the fray. He tried to justify the visit as a private response to an invitation by the Jordanian royal family to inaugurate a research center named after Imam Al-Ghazali. While in Jerusalem, Shaykh Ali Gomaa said he availed himself the opportunity to visit and pray at Al-Aqsa. Realizing those were lame excuses he tried to pacify the near intifada his visit caused by delivering a wonderful Friday sermon extolling the many virtues of Al-Aqsa.

Still, the Ikhwan’s top brass pressed on, demanding he “apologize to the Arab and Islamic people” and resign as Mufti.

Mufti Ali Gomaa fired back. “Visiting Jerusalem is not a crime,” he wrote on his twitter account. “Jerusalem,” he said, “is in the heart of every Muslim and visiting it increases one’s feelings of rejection of occupation and injustices and helps strengthen the (Palestinian) cause.”

For senior scholars in the Middle East such as Shaykh Said Ramadan Al-Buti, at the heart of the dispute is the following question: Does the occupation of Al-Aqsa present sufficient reasons to cancel out an explicit order of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, that believers should visit the sanctuary?

The Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine, and the Khatib of Al-Aqsa Mosque, Shaykh Muhammad Hussein, believes Muslims should continue to visit Al-Aqsa even though Jerusalem is under Israeli occupation. In a fatwa released by Dar al-Ifta (Al-Falesteniyya), Shaykh Hussein outlines the following four general conditions that Muslims should abide by when visiting:

They should be cognizant of their responsibilities and obligations
They not do anything that could be construed as a normalization of occupation
They coordinate with those who have authority among the Muslims in the occupied territories, and
They reflect the Arab and Islamic identity of Jerusalem

Mahmoud Al-Habash, the Palestinian minister of Awqaf, welcomed Mufti Ali Gomaa’s visit as a gesture of solidarity with the Palestinian people and he called on Shaykh Qaradawi to retract his edict on grounds that it contradicted clear Qur’anic verses and reliable Prophetic traditions.

Habbash told the Palestinian daily Al-Quds that visiting Jerusalem was both a “religious commandment and a political necessity,” adding that Qaradawi’s ban “gave a free reign to the Israeli occupation which wants to isolate the holy city from its Arab and Islamic surroundings.”

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has called on Muslims to visit Jerusalem. Abbas’ was unambiguous at an international conference for the Defense of Jerusalem held in Doha in late February. “Visiting Jerusalem,” Abbas said, “is a show of support for its Arab residents and causes Israel’s policy of altering the face of the city to fail.”

Shaykh Qardawi spoke on the second day of that same conference and reiterated his fatwa banning Muslims from visiting Jerusalem. “Visits are banned in order to deprive the occupier of legitimacy,” Qaradawi declared. “Those who visit legitimize an entity which plunders Palestinian lands, and are forced to cooperate with the enemy’s embassy to receive a visa.” “We must feel as though we are banned from Jerusalem and fight for it until it is ours,” Qaradawi said.

Abbas shot back. “Visiting the holy city does not mean normalization. Visiting a prisoner is not normalization with the jailer. The Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, himself visited Jerusalem (the Night Journey) when it was under Byzantine rule,” the Palestinian leader said, “and never did a subsequent Muslim scholar ban visitation to the holy city due to foreign occupation.”

Strange as it might sound, Abbas’ arguments are more in tune with that of the vast majority of Muslims, thousands of whom visit Al-Aqsa every year. Every believer knows that the Messenger of God set out with hundreds of his followers to perform the pilgrimage to the Ka’ba in Mecca while it was under the occupation of Quraysh. Quraysh even refused the Noble Messenger entry into the city. Before returning to Madina, the Prophet got a concession from Quraysh to return the following year. In other words, the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, obtained what would be akin to a modern day visa from Quraysh to enter the holiest city in Islam while it was under occupation.

For all the years the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, prayed in Mecca and for fifteen months in Madina, he and his followers faced the direction of Al-Aqsa. At that time Jerusalem was under the control of the Roman Empire and yet no scholar has ever suggested anything was defective in their prayers. In other words, Jerusalem was holy long before Muslims arrived at its gates.

In performing their ziyaras to Al-Aqsa, Habib Ali and Mufti Ali Gomaa have demonstrated immense courage and vision by adamantly refusing to allow an act of religious significance to be subjected to the shenanigans of politicians.

And now a growing number of international scholars, Muftis from Bosnia, Kosovo and Croatia in the heart of Europe, along with thousands of ordinary Muslims all over the world, are voicing their support for Habib Ali and Shaykh Ali Gomaa.

May 10. 2012.

(In a future post I plan to write about my experiences in Jerusalem and at Al-Aqsa during the week I spent there in 1999. I’ve also benefited greatly from Kanan Makiya’s “The Rock: A Tale of Seventh-Century Jerusalem.” I recommend it for anyone who enjoys reading.)

I REMEMBER – BOSNIA

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Nazim

It’s hard to believe 20 years has passed since the start of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

After listening to the documentary of my distinguished friend and colleague at the CBC, Anna Maria Tremonti, I felt compelled to play the tracks on Yusuf Islam’s album, “I have No Cannon That Roar.”

For those who believe memories are important, even those of tragedies and unspoken human cruelties, please read the blog of Abdal Latif Whiteman titled “Goose Pimples in Sarajevo.” And if you want to hear something that is sure to touch your soul give a listen to his Arabic rendition of “Tashaffa-ya-rasullalah.” The song was performed at a concert in Sarajevo after the war ended and from that same concert came the tracks for “I have No Cannon That Roar.”

In the first part of her documentary Anna Maria takes us back to the start of the war that she covered for the CBC over a period of several years. In part 1 “Born of War” Anna Maria introduces listeners to two Muslim women who were victims of rape and who took their resulting pregnancies to term. It is not for the faint of heart.

In Part 2 “Then and Now” we hear from Aida Alibalic, Anna Maria’s former translator, who shares her memories of what it was like then and what it’s like to live in Sarajevo today. Listeners will also hear from Kenan Hedic, a third generation coppersman who is eking out a living by taking spent shell casings from the heavy artillery dropped on the city by the Serbs and turns them into art.

In part 3 we hear from “General Jovan Divjak” who was second in command of the Bosnian army. He speaks about fighting for a city under siege. At 44 months it was the longest siege of a capital city in modern warfare. Now retired Gen. Divjak has created Education Builds Bosnia-Hercegovina, a non-governmental organization that is helping children victimized by the war by offering them scholarships to pursue their dreams.

When Shaykh Hamza Yusuf was translating Dua’ Nasiri he called me to asked about a picture he had seen in either Time or Newsweek that he thought encapsulated the war in Bosnia. He asked me to help find it. Although it was over 15 years old at the time he still remembered the image. I had no idea what he was talking about but after piling through over 100 Time and Newsweek magazines from the early to mid 1990′s I stumbled on this image and realized immediately that it must be the snapshot Shaykh Hamza was thinking of. Dua’ Nasiri is a powerful prayer and the cries from the women and children of Homs and other cities in Syria begs its continued recitation.

Haggling over the Hilal

Posted on September 4, 2011 by Nazim

Ah, but my calculations, people say,
Have squared the year to human Compass, Eh?
If so, by striking from the calendar
Unborn tomorrow and dead Yesterday.
(Omar Khayyam, The Rubaiyat)

It’s been over three decades since Muslim leaders in North America have been dithering over the hilal, the new moon crescent that heralds the beginning and end of the Islamic lunar months. For the ordinary Muslim the dispute is a maze. They instinctively know that intentionally missing a fast of Ramadan is a sin that requires expiation and are perplexed why some very senior international scholars have adopted a cavalier attitude when many celebrate Eid on a day a significant number of others are still fasting.

For example, this year some national organizations have encouraged ordinary plebs “to celebrate Eid with their local community, following the dates and moon sighting methodology of their qualified leadership.” I am not entirely clear what “dates,” “moon sighting methodology” and “qualified leadership” means, but the jest of it is that the average mosquegoer should not haggle over the hilal. ‘Leave it to scholars,’ they’re told, scholars who seem blissfully oblivious to the implications of their decisions.

For those who haven’t been following the squabble it’s not that difficult to map. On one side of the ring is a group made up mostly of high-ranking members of the North American cell of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Jamaat-i-Islam. They call themselves the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA).

The wise men of the FCNA contend that the intent or objective (maqasid) of the Prophetic practice (Sunnah) of ‘sighting’ the hilal was to ascertain the beginning and end of the lunar months. In other words, sighting, i.e. going out and physically looking for the hilal, was the optimal means at his and his community’s disposal. With the immense scientific knowledge and instruments now available, they say, astronomical calculations is a much more accurate methodology to achieve the same objective. In other words, access to astronomical calculations by an elite group of scientists, has rendered the age-old publicly accessible method of sighting obsolete. If you celebrated Eid on Tuesday Aug. 30, you’ve earned your membership in club FCNA. Welcome.

This year FCNA declared Eid before the beginning of the sacred month. Many wondered how these pious scholars could make a declaration when science itself indicated that sighting on Monday evening Aug. 29 was virtually impossible anywhere in the world except in a few isolated pockets. The simple answer is that sighting has been replaced by astronomical calculation. Why? Whittle it down to “convenience and ease,” as Shaykh Yusuf Qardawi outlined in his essay translated by Yusuf DeLorenzo (“Sighting the Crescent For the Purpose of Ascertaining the Month” taken from Kayfa Nata’amal ma’a al Sunnah).

In this same essay, written by the godfather himself of the Muslim Brotherhood, Shaykh Qardawi rubber stamps FCNA’s position. In one of the more outlandish section of his essay, the elderly Shaykh endorses the arguments of one Shaykh Ahmad Shakir as outlined in his article Awa’il al-Shuhur al ‘Arabiyah. Citing the following authentic hadith: “We are an unlettered people. We neither write nor calculate. The month is this way and that …that is, sometimes 29 days and sometimes 30.” (Sahih, Kitab al-Sawm), Shakir and Shaykh Qardawi concludes: A. we are no longer an unlettered community, and B. those who wrote and calculated in the time of the Prophet were the People of the Book (Christians and Jews) who could have used their knowledge to mislead the community of believers. In other words, the Prophet wanted his community to have an independent criteria.

The blunt fact is that the vast majority of Muslims today are even more unlettered than the desert Arabs when it comes to the complex science of astronomy. Secondly, given the blatant error that ‘sometimes’ emerges from calculations one wonders who is ultimately responsible for misleading the community of worshippers? Do we blame this too on a “Jewish Conspiracy?”

On the other side of the ring are local and some national Hilal organizations and committees with no real leadership structure. Let’s call them ‘the sighters.’ Engaging their almost tribal Deobandi-Tablighi network they seek to verify that the hilal is sighted somewhere in North or South America and by a good number of people to reach the level of certainty.

Contrary to rumors of being unscientific and backward looking, the majority of sighters embrace science to determine when and where the hilal could be seen and then set out to verify that it is physically sighted in the regions with the strongest possible visibilities. That to them is the best of both worlds – Sunnah and Science at the service of the worshipper.

If you completed 30 days of Ramadan and celebrated Eid on Wednesday Aug. 31, you believe sighting is a vital Sunnah (many authentic hadith in Bukhari and Muslim attest to this) to mark your place in sacred time. Sacred time is extremely important to you and should never be compromised because it’s minutes and hours hold immense rewards for good actions, charity, sacrifices, and the Divine acceptance of prayers and supplications. Furthermore, you also believe that while astronomical calculations can certainly steer the faithful to the correct horizon on the right day and time, it alone is not sufficient to lift the Prophetic practice (Sunnah) of sighting.

On Monday Aug. 29, Muslims living in the east and in the western hemisphere went out at sunset with the hope of sighting the hilal of the moon. Maged Abou Zahra, president of the Jeddah Astronomical Society, knew the moon could not be sighted in Saudi Arabia at sunset. Still Saudi Arabia declared an end to Ramadan. Many countries with majority and minority Muslim communities followed their lead. But Abou Zahra had a rational explanation for the mistaken sighting. “Saturn, he said, “is visible this time of the year, and can be easily observed with the naked eye.” This has led to headlines in local Saudi newspapers such as “Today is the second of Shawal and third of Saturn.”

That Saudi Arabia would declare Eid on the basis of a false sighting comes as no great surprise regardless of the quantity of ‘husn-al-zann’ they might have accumulated. According to Mohammad Ilyas of Malaysia, one of the leading scholars on the topic of moon sighting, Saudi Arabia claimed to have sighted the hilal 14 out of 36 times, when it was scientifically impossible for it to do so. He wrote that in his book published in 1993. The count is calculably much higher today. On the bright side, Saudi Arabia saw a crescent in the night sky and mistook it for the hilal. The irony is that Saudi Arabia does not determine its calendar on the basis of sighting. Sighting is an attempt to appease Wahabis and Salafis who might launch an intifada if they found out their Kingdom is not so literal when it comes to applying a Sunnah.

Some Salafist communities in North America neither obey FCNA nor adhere to the decision of their local Hilal Committee, but say they’re following ‘global sighting.’ These communities will also never accept a Chinese determination or even a South African. That’s because there is no way they can verify claims of sighting in geographic regions they’re unfamiliar with. Thus, claims of ‘global sighting’ is a ruse to follow the declaration of Saudi Arabia which is home to Islam’s two most sacred mosques. Following the people of Mecca and Madina has its merits and is usually reserved for those with no local alternatives, but since it is done under the guise of ‘global sighting’ this group remains in the camp of the sighters even if uncommitted to its tenets.

In North America, Zulfiqar Ali Shah, executive director of FCNA, looking the part of a perplexed weather forecaster predicting sunshine while drenched in rain, aired a bizarre video message on his company’s website before the end of Ramadan. It’s ‘bizarre’ because FCNA had already declared Eid on Tues. Aug. 30. Was the message an attempt to sell calculation to a community committed to sighting? Or was it an attempt to placate a potential backlash by many against FCNA’s callous disregard of a confirmed Sunnah?

Ali Shah said “there is a strong possibility the hilal will not be seen in the east,” (i.e. Saudi Arabia) however, he said, “it will be sighted in the western hemisphere.” He explained the basis of his ‘absolute’ claim by calling attention to science, i.e. the age of the moon at the time of sunset in California, Hawaii and South America. If one were to listen to his five minutes heavily edited sermon it is clear the man has a hard time stringing together a few coherent sentences in English. He also has some difficulty distinguishing between ‘visible,’ ‘sighting’ and “sightable.”

Ali Shah quotes the famous hadith of God’s Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him: “Sight it (hilal) and begin fasting, sight it and end your fast.” He omits the second part of the hadith: “But if you are obstructed (i.e. clouded over), then estimate it.” Another version says: “But if you are obstructed, then complete the period of Sha’ban as thirty.”

It is now a fact, call it scientific if you wish, that the new crescent was not sighted anywhere in North or South America. It was impossible to see it. It was not visible. It was not sighted, and if it was sightable, no one saw it.

The claim that the hilal was apparently seen on a beach in south Chile by one Fuad Musa, an unnamed sister and an unnamed Sheikh, was discounted as credible since it was among other things, an isolated observation that did not satisfy the criteria of certainty to end the divinely ordained fast of Ramadan. Last I heard, the majority of the estimated 4,000 Muslims in Chile celebrated Eid on Wed. Aug. 31, completing the 30 days of Ramadan.

It is fair to conclude that Ali Shah was being deceptive, i.e. lying, or he was wholly speculative (i.e. unscientific) when he claimed “it (hilal) will be sighted on Mon. Aug. 29.” One would expect some kind of statement from Ali Shah on behalf of Club FCNA correcting his blatant error. I am not heavy with anticipation.

The ‘sighters’ are not blame free either. My own local Hilal Committee in Toronto operates as if it is deciding a matter in Lahore or a densely populated Muslim city of Gujarat, India, not for the approximately half a million Muslims living in the Greater Toronto Area. For this reason, the formidable West Indian mosques in Toronto have mostly dropped the Hilal Committee and are opting instead for team FCNA. It’s akin to giving up a friendly next door neighbour for a stranger living 100 miles away.

Toronto’s Hilal Committee needs a facelift and the first step is to get rid of the deadbeat Deobandi/Tablighi Jamaat Mullahs and Muftis who much prefer the lazy comfort of their male centric mosques to a forum that is transparent and inclusive.

The two camps are now firmly entrenched in their respective positions. There is a chance that hell will freeze over before the Deobandis abandon what they believe to be a confirmed Sunnah. Club FCNA too is not likely to back away from their now skewed modernist interpretations of the ahadith.

Now that the deck has been sorted and the camps entrenched, the obvious question is what should the ordinary Muslim do after fasting an entire month and only desires peace of mind, a plate of biryani and some well deserved kebabs?

The Internet scholars on Facebook and Twitter are admonishing them to go with the flow and follow their local mosque. In my area alone there are eight different mosque and musallas. Their advise is not helpful. Some are advising patience and allow time for the scholars to debate the issue. That’s been going on for three decades and counting.

Muslims have an enviable and a unique place on the landscape of timekeeping. We are the only community anywhere in the world that still follows a purely lunar calendar. The current crisis is perhaps the first glimpse of its unraveling or an affirmation that sacred time is vital to ensure that all human endeavors confirm to the Divine order.

Hard-working men and women need to make some noise now and if that doesn’t help resolve this issue then people need to make an intelligent and informed decision when it comes to observing the Islamic lunar calendar. At the end of the day, they should take comfort in the fact that the fast of Ramadan is a fard while the Eid prayer and its accompanying celebrations are commendable and beautiful Sunnahs. (Note: I am aware the Eid prayer is Wajib among the Hanafis).

Muslims and the Assault on Liberalism

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Nazim

A few years ago I wrote an essay for the Tabah Foundation titled “Reasonable Accommodation: Religion, Secular Law and the Limits of Multiculturalism”. At the time, Dr. Charles Taylor, a world-renowned philosopher and author of A Secular Age and Dr. Gerard Bouchard, a reputable Canadian sociologist, had been appointed to carry out a series of public consultations in Quebec. The provincial government wanted a formula to handle the apparently never-ending stream of demands from faith communities for religious accommodation in the public sphere. The commission was dubbed “Reasonable Accommodation.”

I felt it was important for Muslims living as minorities in the West to become familiar with the debate and the findings of the commission. It was not just a theoretical exercise but rather addressing an issue that Muslims need to understand better in order to adapt to the terrain of liberal secular societies.

Now that the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), the largest school Board in Canada and fourth largest in North America, is being attacked for allowing Muslim students at Valley Park Middle School to offer the Friday congregational prayers in the school’s cafeteria, it is important to revisit the topic and to ask whether this particular accommodation meets the yardstick of ‘reasonable’ or not?

Before answering the question is it important to make three observations. The first is that the attack on liberalism in Canada appears to be following the lead of demagogues in the United States. Ann Coulter, David Horowitz and a slew of pundits argue that every “wild” and “demonic” trend in American society has its roots in a liberal “mob,” “church,” or “media.” The underlying message is that liberals are a dangerous bunch that must be stopped in their tracks.

When media commentators rightfully characterized Anders Behring Breivik, Norway’s accused mass murderer, as a Christian extremist, conservative commentators accused them of smearing Conservatives by attacking Christians. They then went on the offensive claiming that Breivik was not a Christian at all ignoring his well publicized 1500 page manifesto that declared his commitment to the Christian faith.

The second observation is that a hardcore conservative clique are accusing the ‘liberal horde’ of having a love affair with radical Islam. The title of Andrew McCarthy’s book is The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America. Howoritz’s title is equally alarming: Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left.

The third observation is that conservatives believe that Islam and Muslims are determined to subvert western societies from within, either through violence or other means. Even so-called ‘mainstream’ Muslims, they assert, can’t be trusted because they’ll use legal means to “Shari’afy” western societies.

To recap:
Defending liberal values is the devil’s work
Liberals and Radical Muslims are in cahoots
Liberals attack Christians and desire a godless society while Muslims are plotting a Shari’a coup d’état.

This just happens to be the disfigured landscape the young students at Valley Park stepped onto when they asked to use their school’s cafeteria to offer Friday prayers.

John Rawls, the brilliant Harvard scholar and a philosopher many describe as the most important political thinker of the 20th century, considered cultural accommodation an important facet of developed liberal secular societies. That’s because the goal of western liberal democracies is to achieve what he called a “Just Society.” In his 1971 work A Theory of Justice, Rawls defined a “Just Society” as one in which each citizen “receives an equal guarantee under law to as many different liberties and as much of them as can be guaranteed to every other citizen at the same time.”

The birth of Canada’s multiculturalism followed a vigorous debate over whether newly arriving cultural and ethnic communities would be allowed the same liberties as Christians and people of the Jewish faith. Canada’s policy of multiculturalism meant that all faith communities would have equal guarantee under law to religious and cultural accommodation. It is a principle enshrined in our Charter of Rights and Freedom.

For decades, Ottawa, the provinces and municipalities, gleefully facilitated and funded any and every request for cultural accommodation so long as it was cosmetic. I’ve described it in my essay as “cheap accommodation.”

But as new ethnic communities matured and began climbing the social ladder their requests for further accommodations started to become “expensive.” The state found itself in the uncomfortable position of trying to balance demands for cultural accommodation against existing laws and policies. As cases piled up in courts, the inherent cracks in Canada’s commitment to multiculturalism reached a critical point. This was most obvious in Quebec where the Taylor-Bouchard commission was struck to find solutions.

While religious accommodation was to remain the norm given the freedoms established by the Charter, the Taylor-Bouchard commission found that in some cases, demands for accommodation should meet the standard of ‘reasonableness.’ This does not mean they had to be rational or logical, but rather the reasons for wanting them should be publicly accessible. This opens a can of worms and it’s not clear who decides what is or is not reasonable. That responsibility is falling increasingly on the shoulders of Canadian judges.

Let’s consider one case that illustrates some of the problems this approach entails. Sikh students in Canada are allowed to attend classes with their kirpan, a ceremonial dagger. Sikhs say it is a cardinal pillar of their faith and that it is harmless because they’re forbidden to unsheathe it. Non-Sikh parents have argued that it could endanger the lives of their children. They cite evidence that adult Sikhs have unsheathed their kirpans during bouts of violence even at temples. Sikhs are not allowed to board a plane with their kirpans. Why doesn’t the school board’s regulation prohibiting all forms of weapons extend to Sikh students as well? What is the reason for the exemption beyond the fact that it is an article of Sikh faith?

After four years of legal wrangling, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 2006 that a 12-year-old Sikh student in Quebec be allowed to carry his kirpan to school. The Supreme Court determined that the rights guaranteed by the Charter trumped arguments of public safety advanced by the Board of Education. Rulings like this have infuriated many across Canada who believe they’ve become hostages to all forms of unreasonable demands on grounds of religious freedom.

According to Rawls, the sultan of liberalism both feared and loathed by conservatives, ‘reasonable’ must be what is “good, i.e. what is just and fair for all citizens.” But how is allowing Sikh students to carry the kirpan “just and fair to others?”

An Ontario court recently ruled against a Sikh man who argued that by wearing a helmet, the legal requirement of a motorcyclist, he would have to remove his religiously mandated turban. The judge said that by not wearing the helmet the man’s action could result in an “unreasonable public cost” to Ontario’s health-care system. In other words, his demand for accommodation was neither just or fair to others.

This brings us back to the controversy over Friday prayers at Valley Park Middle School. There is absolutely no evidence that by restricting the use of the cafeteria to Muslim students for approximately an hour on Fridays results in harm, physical or otherwise, to others. Students are not denied a meal as a result unless there is a compelling reason they have to eat in the cafeteria at that exact time.

The prayer is conducted the way it is at any other school or mosque in the city of Toronto and both male and female students come and go as they please. Is the TDSB in violation of its own regulation by accommodating its Muslim students? Some say it is and they plan to challenge the TDSB in a court of law. But what would be the grounds for this challenge? That the school has compromised its secular principle to accommodate a religious minority? Or is it because that particular faith minority happens to be Muslims? Use of the cafeteria once a week for a limited time does not magically transform it into a mosque even if one were to take loads of pictures and splash them on the front pages of every newspaper in the city.

Canadian secularism is liberal in the sense that it has never sought to curtail private religious practices from entering civic space. According to the founding father of liberalism – John Rawls – that would mean denying a basic freedom to people of faith. And his ideal of a “Just Society” would be severely compromised.

France, on the other hand, has a different exegesis of “secularism” and has ruled in favour of banning Muslim women from wearing the niqab in public spaces. In other words, protecting the secular character of the French state is a higher ideal than the freedom to practice one’s religion, however warped that practice might be in the eyes of the majority.

It appears that those who object to the prayers would prefer to have the TDSB decide where female students perform the prayer in respect to the male students. Or perhaps, the TDSB should screen the prayer leader and the content of his or her sermon. While these might be legitimate issues they’re not matters for the TDSB to adjudicate. Perhaps a committee of concerned parents might be better able to intervene should these concerns arise.

What the TDSB must have considered in making its decision is the large number of students asking for extended lunch hour to offer Friday prayers at a nearby mosque. This trend disrupted normal class hours and school officials would have also weighed the safety of so many students leaving the premises all at the same time. Almost 90 percent of the 1300 or so students at Valley Park are Muslims. Less than a third attend the Friday prayer.

The ferocity of the assault on liberal values threatens some very basic freedoms. This should concern everyone. And if it means liberals and Muslims have to unite to defend these freedoms then that’s an alliance I am prepared to endorse. This does not mean Muslims and Conservatives are enemies. In fact, many Muslims find common cause with fiscal conservatism particularly now with the debate over debt raging in the United States.

Friday prayer at Valley Park or any other public school in Canada is not a hideous plot to destroy the legal principles of Canadian society, but rather an attempt to reinforce the ideals that brought many of us to this country in the first place.

A Canadian Salafist Abroad

Posted on July 14, 2011 by Nazim

Bilal Philips is no stranger to controversy. The Canadian preacher who makes his home in Qatar these days now has the attention of the Attorney General of Ontario, the Ontario Provincial Police and Toronto Police, for incendiary comments he made to reporters.

Bilal Philips

Philips was in Toronto to speak at the Journey of Faith (JoF) conference, an annual assembly of every able-bodied Salafist preacher not yet banned from entering Canada. Last year’s conference made headlines when Zakir Naik’s visa was cancelled by Ottawa days before his anticipated arrival. This was Philips’ year.

His carefully dyed black beard, African style skull cap and fluency in Arabic goes a far way to mask the fact that he was born on the tropical Caribbean island of Jamaica in 1947 as one Dennis Bradley Philips. He would later migrate to Canada, convert to Islam in 1972 and change his name to Bilal. He is also known as Abu Ameenah, the father of Ameenah, the name of his eldest child. Although given his colourful past moonlighting as a gun-runner it could have easily served as his nom de guerre.

The members of the nascent Muslim community he joined were struggling then to define the meaning of halal, haram, hilal and hijab. Given the topics addressed at JoF, it appears the now robust Muslim community of 400,000 is stuck on the same tune. Not surprisingly, so are the city’s daily newspapers. The media’s primary role is to cover not cover-up.

Philips early arrival and the Friday sermons he gave in the weeks leading up to the conference first got the attention of the National Post. Philips’ apparently ‘backward position’ on homosexuality provided a convenient ‘hook in’ for the media attention he would receive. Keen-eyed reporters could have jumped all over his book “Polygamy in Islam” where he advocates in favor of a man taking up to four wives. Or, his sectarian denunciation of Shi’ites as ‘kafirs’, a favorite subject of his during the 1980’s Iran-Iraq war when his Saudi employers generously funded his English translations of “The Mirage in Iran” and “The Devil’s Deception.” Instead, the media went with homosexuality.

It might come as a surprise to Philips that timing, not a Zionist-homosexual conspiracy, is an integral newsroom ingredient. The mayor of Toronto received his fair share of the media limelight after he declined to participate in the Pride Parade, opting instead to take his family outing. Was the mayor a closet homophobe? Speculation ran amok. The city was abuzz with gossip.

JoF and Pride were timed for the same July 1-3 holiday weekend. As hundreds of Muslims crammed into the Metro Convention Centre, just a few blocks south, thousands of revelers swayed to the music of Pride.

On the eve of the conference/parade the Toronto Star reported that in an interview “Philips cheerfully advocated death as a punishment for males who confess to homosexual behaviour, or are seen performing homosexual acts by four reliable witnesses, in countries governed by Islamic law.” (June 30) It is not exactly clear what Philips’ motive might have been for expounding on the Islamic legal ramifications of homosexuality. Perhaps he was troubled after a recent visit to Bannu in the NWFP of Pakistan or to villages and cities in Afghanistan where the practice of ‘bacha bazi’ (systemic sexual abuse of boys) runs deep. Edifying believers in the Muslim world on the nuances of his Salafist dogma with all its hateful “al-wala wal-bara” overtones might be a more productive exercise.

Muslim leaders in Toronto have argued the issue in the public square for decades. They’ve had their say, been heard, duly noted, lost that battle and many of us thought – moved on to other issues.

Twenty years ago the then Toronto Board of Education (TBE, now the TDSB) asked for input on its new teacher’s guide on homosexuality, lesbianism and homophobia. Journalist Zuhair Kashmeri quoted Imam Abdullah Hakim-Quick, a member of a special TBE committee that deals with religious practices, as saying that homosexuality is “considered deviant behaviour punishable by death under Islamic law.” (NOW, July 30-Aug. 5, 1992). Incidentally, Hakim-Quick also converted to Islam in Toronto in 1972 and has had a life-long friendship with Philips.

Hakim-Quick, who was an Imam at the Jami’ mosque for five years, clarified to Kashmeri that death was only applicable in countries where Islamic law prevailed. In other words, no where on God’s earth. As for Toronto Muslims who were identifiably gay, Imam Hakim-Quick told Kashmeri that “people can’t be blackballed for being gay…I would counsel them. I would encourage them to come to the mosque. It is the house of Allah. Allah guides whom he pleases.” At the time, his position sounded fairly progressive. I recall many hard-liners in the community chastising him for not taking a more hardball approach.

In a companion piece to Kashmeri’s, Ali Sharrif wrote an article titled: “Shielding Children from Sex.” In it he quoted Abdullah Idriss, then principal of ISNA’s school, as saying that the TBE guide “has been designed to attack the heterosexual family. It has complete disregard for the cultural and religious diversity of those who are not white, or Westernized enough to adopt Western ideals. So what are Muslim students to do now? Give up their faith and adopt homosexual ideals contrary to their culture and religion?” (NOW, July 30-Aug. 5, 1992). The comment speaks for itself. Shaykh Abdullah Idriss too was a featured speaker at the JoF conference.

Philips comment that “homosexuality is evil” – the unequivocal position of both the Bible and the Quran – got the attention of German immigration officials. That too had to do with timing. The Germans interpreted his comment as advocating the killing of homosexuals and banned him from entering the country. So did Britain and Australia. India froze his visa application for other reasons, making it difficult, if not impossible, for him to attend his friend Zakir Naik’s Peace TV’s annual shindig.

Even if Philips, like Imam Hakim-Quick 20 years ago, had offered important caveats to the Star reporter such as the credibility of the witnesses, a fair trial, a successful conviction or confession, only applicable in countries governed by Islamic law, none of it is relevant to anyone in Canada. And because his comments have no legal implications to the citizens of this city, something he is well aware of, they must have been designed to tug at the moral cords of his audience, many whom no doubt regard him as a “charismatic and articulate” scholar of Islam.

Bell quoted Philips as saying that “AIDS is a form of divine punishment.” I am not sure exactly when this observation was revealed to him, but the majority of Muslim scholars, including the great Al-‘Izz ibn Abdus-Salam, saw tremendous spiritual benefits in all forms of tribulations. The exception, according to Philips’ doctrine, must be AIDS because it is the one disease most frequently associated with the gay and lesbian community.

Could the Germans be right? Was Philips inciting vigilante attacks on gays and lesbians? Canadian authorities are asking similar questions.The answer might be in his past. J.M. Berger, author of “Jihad Joe: Americans who go to war in the name of Islam,” provides a rare glimpse of Philips’ vision. Bell outlines some salient details in his National Post article.

For example, Philips ran an “off the books” Saudi paramilitary operation in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the early 1990’s. Here is a portion of Bell’s article.

…the Saudis approached Mr. Philips in 1992 to start a program that would send American Muslim ex-servicemen to Bosnia to train Muslim fighters battling Serbian forces. They brought the plan to Mr. Philips because he had helped convert hundreds of American troops stationed in Saudi Arabia after the first Gulf War.“I was approached by a couple of military people and asked if I knew any of the troops that had accepted Islam, gone back to the States and had left the American military, you know, who might be willing to go to Bosnia to help train the Bosnians,” the book quotes Mr. Philips as telling the author. “What they said they were looking for was something like an A-Team of specialists who would then go and train them to help in resisting the Serbian slaughter.”Writes Mr. Berger: “That request marked the start of a program that would soon spiral out of control, embroiling U.S. military veterans in a jihadist circle with links to al-Qaeda and to a stunningly ambitious homegrown plot to kill thousands of innocent victims in New York City.”

Asked about the book, Mr. Philips called it “a mixture of fact and fiction.” In an email, he said he was “a Canadian Muslim scholar who 20 years ago tried in a limited way to help his Muslim brothers who were being slaughtered by the Serbs in what came to be known as the biggest massacre and act of ethnic cleansing in the middle of Europe since World War II.”

The first stop of Project Bosnia, as the book calls it, was Switzerland, where Mr. Philips met Hasan Cengic, a Bosnian official, imam and gunrunner who agreed to fund the program through a charity called the Third World Relief Agency, which was largely financed by Saudis.

“After the meeting, Philips started to canvass his military friends back in the United States,” the book says. One of them, identified only as Tahir, was a Vietnam vet who had met Mr. Philips during the conversion program in Saudi Arabia. The book said he is also an alleged al-Qaeda member, although Mr. Philips denied that.

Tahir personally escorted about a dozen recruits, including several Special Forces veterans, to Bosnia, where they set up outside the northeast city of Tuzla. Most of the military trainers left following the mission but some stayed on to fight, the book says.

An American who had fought in Afghanistan, Abdullah Rashid, later replaced Tahir. Unable to recruit veterans, Mr. Rashid decided instead to train non-veteran American Muslims and send them to Bosnia. “Philips agreed and provided him with money to get started,” reads the book.

The recruits, who were from New York and Philadelphia, trained at a camp in rural Pennsylvania but some of them decided that, rather than traveling to Bosnia for jihad, they would instead attack America, specifically New York City.

A Day of Terror was planned, during which bombs would be detonated throughout the city. The United Nations and FBI buildings were among the targets. “The plan they were most close to acting on was to set off truck bombs in the Lincoln and Holland tunnels in New York during rush hour, which would have killed thousands, probably more people than 9/11,” Mr. Berger said.

Told the group was talking about attacking America, Mr. Philips said he rejected the idea and told Mr. Rashid to disband the group or send them overseas. “It was just totally inappropriate. It becomes, some kind of, you know, terrorism really, you know, unleashing violence against civilian population. It’s not acceptable,” the book quotes him as saying.

The FBI got wind of the plot while investigating the failed 1993 truck bombing of the World Trade Center. Ten people were eventually convicted over the New York plot, including Omar Abdel-Rahman, an anti-American Egyptian cleric known as the Blind Sheikh.

Mr. Philips was never charged and told the National Post he has been “from the beginning opposed to the Qaeda and any form of terrorism in the name of Islam,” and that he “continues to oppose suicide bombing directed against civilian populations anywhere.”

He said “some bits” of the book were correct but others were left out. For example, he claims the New York conspirators were actually “set up” by the FBI informant, whom he said “was the one feeding them ideas.”

Said Mr. Berger, “It’s very difficult to evaluate Philips as a source. He’s very charismatic. You want to believe him but certainly he has a pretty long history of controversy that surrounds him and certainly there are a lot of people in [the U.S.] government at least that would like to sit him down for a very long talk.”

Although somewhat curtailed in his travels, Mr. Philips still reaches his followers through the Islamic Online University, which he founded a decade ago, and his website, which calls Jews “misguided human beings who need Islam.”

Asked why some governments don’t seem to want him visiting, he replied, “Well, I think mainly it is an issue of assimilation. I mean, they want Muslims in their countries to assimilate and be indistinguishable from the regular local population.

“That’s what I see at the bottom of it.”

This is a farcical excuse that should be rejected by any Muslim with a brain. By his own admission, Philips recruited mercenaries from the U.S. to run a paramilitary army in Europe on behalf of a third country. While many might sympathize with his adopted cause given the slaughter of Muslims in Bosnia, these tasks are normally assigned to people like Ollie North of the Iran-Contra Affair, certainly not to a man of the robe and the author of numerous books on Jinns and witchcraft. But Philips did worst. He traded his religious knowledge and the experience of his own conversion for a price in order to prey on vulnerable men convincing many to join a mercenary army in Europe. With Philips’ blessing many of his recruits would have certainly joined Al-Qaeda in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and hard evidence, not an FBI conspiracy, proves that they planned domestic terrorist attacks in the U.S. I spent a full year researching the New York terror plot for an award-winning CBC 5th Estate documentary that aired in 1994.

There is absolutely no doubt that former Arab-Afghan Jihadists ran the league of foreign paramilitary warriors out of Sarajevo between 1992-1996. There is likewise no doubt that many of them returned to Afghanistan in 1996 to pledge allegiance (bi’ah) to Osama Bin Laden after he fled Khartoum for Kabul. That’s why Philips’ legal ramblings have been interpreted as inciting to violence and it’s precisely why his travels have been drastically curtailed. Was he speaking in Toronto with the conscience of a scholar or the forked tongue of a warrior?

There are times when I believe that our community exhibits a high level of maturity in expressing itself and demonstrating transparency even at critical times of rampant Islamophobia, but inviting Philips to speak at a major Islamic conference and then defending his irrelevant rants sets us back as a community and does more harm than good.

(Note: In a future blog I intend to spell out why I think the hateful and innovated doctrine of “Al-Wala Wal-Bara,” a foundational value of Salafist of all stripes, makes it impossible for Muslims to live as minorities in the West).

Tortured and Murdered

Posted on May 31, 2011 by Nazim

Saleem Shahzad was a courageous journalist and a friend. We called each other ‘bhai’ which means brother, out of respect and love. I admired him for reporting in a very dangerous region. He covered a subject few dared tackle and paid the ultimate price for it. Today, I got the sad news that his tortured and murdered bodywas recovered six miles from his car on the outskirts of Islamabad. He had disappeared two nights ago en route to a television studio to be interviewed about his allegations that Al-Qaeda had staged an attack against the Mehran naval base in Karachi in retaliation for the arrest of two pro-Al-Qaeda naval officers.

Syed Saleem Shahzad (left) with Nazim

I pray for his wife who was always polite even when I called too early in the morning or much too late at night. His kids too, who played noisily as we tried to have a conversation about his interviews with high-ranking commanders of the Pakistan or Afghan Taliban.

Saleem was always concerned about his security. When we met in Kabul in 2008, the last time I saw him, he told me Pakistani authorities were nervous about whom he was going off to interview this time. Little did they know that he was hopping on a plane to Kabul to be interviewed by a CBC documentary team.

In the days that we spent together at a guest house in Kabul, the Sareena hotel was attacked by three suicide bombers. Several guards, hotel guests and workers were killed. The loss of life would have been higher except one suicide vest failed to detonate. Members of the Canadian team, all of whom had received extensive AKE training to report from war zones, knew we had to change our routine. Saleem was curious about the training and although he had received none, his surpassed ours on account of his real life experiences.

With his characteristic shy smile he spared no detail telling me how he wormed his way into Waziristan to interview Sirajuddin Haqqani, son of the notorious warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani, and the many hurdles he overcame getting back safely into Pakistan.

Saleem came on the radar of my colleague Julian Sher because he wrote in a style that was highly visual and descriptive. He described a scene as a radio reporter would, painting a picture in words. In 2007 Julian asked me to get in touch with Saleem and to assess how reliable he was and whether I would peg him as pro-Taliban or pro-ISI, Pakistan’s corrupt Inter-Service Intelligence. After reading nearly a year of his articles and talking to him for extensive periods I concluded that he wasn’t pro anything. He was pro the truth and he was determined to tell it in a way that was compelling and thought provoking.

I last spoke with Saleem shortly after the U.S. killed Osama bin Laden. I asked him what he was hearing. He said it was indeed the Al Qaeda leader that was killed, but while Pakistani authorities were told about the strike by the Americans they had no idea who the target was.

Saleem Bhai, whoever did this to you are the worst and most despicable human beings on this earth. They’ll get what they deserve. I pray that your new book – Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond Osama bin Laden and 9/11″ – will do well and the hundreds of reports that you authored will inspire a new cadre of journalists to blossom in a country where the powerful seek to suppress the truth with bullets. Rest well my friend. Our journey continues.

Muammar! Who is the Iblis now?

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Nazim

There are two pictures on this page. Both are Libyans but a world of difference separates them. I believe one is the image of piety, the other, despicable evil. The image on the right is Sayyid Muhammad Idris Al-Mahdi As-Sanusi. He was born circa 1889 in Jaghbub when Libya was part of the Ottaman Khilafah. He was the first and only King of Libya. Those who knew him said he prayed Tahajjud every night and was outwardly pious.

Gaddafi

In 1969 the man on the left, Muammar Al-Gadafi, who has over 200 spelling of his name and whom the world will soon forget, staged a military coup and toppled Sidi Muhammad Idris. At this time Sidi Muhammad was in Turkey seeking medical treatment. After the coup the King was granted asylum in Egypt. He died on May 25, 1983 at the age of 94. He was buried in Madina Al-Munawwarah in the company of the best of God’s creation. His grandfather was the founder of the Sanusiyah Brotherhood (Tariqa). After Sidi Muhammad’s father died in 1902, he became the leader of the Sanusiyah Tariqa and its active leader when he was 16. Following the Italian invasion of Libya in 1922 he was forced into exile in Egypt where he continued to lead his people. During WWII the exiled King recruited Libyan fighters to aid the Allied forces against Nazi Germany and the Axis. In 1947 he returned home and in 1949 the United Nations determined that representatives of three provinces should meet in a national assembly to decide their future. The assembly met and decided on a constitutional monarchy and offered the reign to Sidi Muhammad. In 1951 Libya declared its independence. The army rose up against the King dubbing him “Idris Iblis.”

Shaykh Ahmad Ibrahim Al-Zarruq Ehwass.

Shaykh Ahmad Ibrahim Al-Zarruq Ehwass

A senior member of the 1969 coup along with Gadafi was a young army Major named Ahmad Ibrahim Al-Zarruq Ehwass. He was my first serious Arabic and Islamic studies teacher. In those years he was the Libyan ambassador to Guyana (1977-1981), the country of my birth. Shaykh Ahmad was a pious man. He was a learned scholar, charismatic, generous, patient and kind. The youth of Guyana loved him and his regular weekly classes drew teenagers from remote regions of the country. Many traveled long distances risking their safety to attend his weekend classes in Georgetown.

The elders respected him, but he was a stranger they never really got to know. He played cricket with us, but preferred soccer. He ate what we ate and sat on the floor to teach us the rules of Tajwid. In return, we taught him many Guyanese terms. He fell in love with our poor tropical third world country and was so involved in the affairs of its community that he adopted an orphaned infant raising him as his own. He and his wonderful wife didn’t have any children.

I never saw him get angry. He was a Hafiz of the Quran and recited it every night in prayers. Long after bedtime we would hear him reciting verses of the Quran from memory. He fasted every Monday and Thursday. He followed the Maliki Madhab, but knew enough of the Hanafi fiqh and adopted it in prayers so as not to cause disunity in our small vibrant community. He stood up when the majority of Muslims would stand to send Salat and Salam on the Prophet during the annual Mawlid celebrations. He considered Gadafi’s Green Book garbage and it was. I knew that when I was 15-years-old.

After the 69′ coup, Shaykh Ahmad came to see Gaddafi for what he was, a tyrant who did not deserve what he coveted. Convinced that the real “Iblis” was about to turn Libya into hell on earth, he spoke out and was jailed. Unable to keep him incarcerated, Gadafi assigned him to a host of diplomatic positions in Denmark, North Yemen, Somalia, South Yemen, Malaysia and finally Guyana. Ten years after the coup Shaykh Ahmad formed the Islamic Salvation Front for the Liberation of Libya. He was determined to correct the mistake of 1969 by force if necessary.

He quit his position as ambassador in 1981 and left Guyana. None of his many students who are now community activists in Florida, NY, Toronto and throughout the Caribbean, would ever see him again. I was the sole exception. At the ISNA conference in Sept. 1983 I met Shaykh Ahmad in Indianapolis. He was serious. Intense. Scarry in some ways. He was in the company of many Libyan men and some ‘shy’ Americans whom I later realized were masters at the dark art of espionage. I was 19 and none of it made sense to me at the time.

What became evident much later was that in the shadows of the Islamic confernce Shaykh Ahmad was planning a coup. King Idris would have been proud of the moral backbone of this son of Libya who so hated the injustices of Gadafi that he was determined to oust him. King Idris died that same year and knew that Gadafi was conducting a brutal campaign of assassination against hundreds of opponents to his regime. Human Rights organizations accounted for Libyan ’Ulema who were killed by Gadafi, many during the Hajj in the most sacred Islamic cities. Eight months (May 8, 1984) after ISNA, Shaykh Ahmad and a group of armed fighters staged a failed coup at Bab Al-Aziziya. Media reports said they killed 30 bodyguards of Gadafi but did not succeed in getting him. Shaykh Ahmad was killed and Newsweek printed a picture of him with a story that hinted at the possibility that the men might have been betrayed.

What he started 30 years ago and ultimately gave his life to achieve, hundreds, perhaps thousands of Libyans, have sacrificed their lives trying to complete. I heard an Imam in Tripoli use the mimbar today (Feb. 25) to remind worshippers that the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, is reported to have said: If you disapprove of your leaders do not raise your voices nor your swords in protests, otherwise you should be killed (i.e. capital punishment).” Someone should have reminded the young Colonel Gadafi of this in 1969. It’s a little too late now.

ISNA – Changing of the Guards? Wishing

Posted on January 20, 2011 by Nazim

On Thursday Jan. 20 2011 the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) arrested Sayfilden Tahir Sharef in Edmonton on charges of aiding and abetting terrorism. Media in the U.S. and Canada put foot to pedal even though very little was divulged about the accused.

On the same day, two major Canadian newspapers delivered even more troubling news. The National Post’s Stewart Bell published “Mideast sources fund controversial mosque.” Bell’s article focused on the Salahudin Mosque in Scarborough and its controversial Imam Aly Hindy who despite his Wahabi/Salafist commitments continues to receive huge sums of money from donors such as the Islamic Development Banks and charitable folks in Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE.

The Toronto Star published a front page “exclusive” with a headline that screamed “Muslim Charity misspent $600,000. in donations.” The article focused on the results of an independent financial audit of the Islamic Society of North America (Canadian chapter). Of all the news that day though the ISNA story sent ripples through the community. The article rolled out with a full scale picture of Mohammad Ashraf who ran ISNA as if it was his daddy’s rice plantation in the Punjab. It proves you can give a person a PhD in microbiology but you can’t extinguish the fire of feudalism burning in his DNA.

For years senior members of our community were told to be patient, to hide the faults of a man who held onto the reigns of ISNA as if it was his birth right. For two decades spineless directors allowed him to run amok. Anyone who complained was shut out, ran out of town or shamed into silence or worse, compliance. Now on the brink of his retirement the daggers are out. The very same individuals who are ready to cast the first stone at Mr. Ashraf knew with certainty that his pattern of behavior was taking place as far back as the mid to late 1980′s. They did nothing. “Brother,” they would exhort gullible souls, “hide the faults of your Muslim brother.”

Apparently transparency isn’t a virtue that carry much weight in the moral scales of the Muslim Brotherhood. Meanwhile, the Punjabi alliance thrived and prospered until not even the Arabs who thought they were in control could stop the juggernaut. The hardline Salafis dominated it from the center and Farhat Hashmi and her band of niqabed Salafis moved in to fill the last saff so no one could escape. Yasir Qahdi and his kind flourished while Sunni scholars were denied use of the grand facilities at ISNA HQ. Qadhi was recently feted at ISNA HQ and celebrated as a leading North American scholar. None of this is an accident and I expect nothing will happen to change the guards at ISNA unless CRA conducts its own investigation.

Toronto Star by Jesse McLean. ISNA Canada is embroiled in controversy, with the audit revealing the practice of giving free perks to family members of a top official; the improper issuing of charitable tax receipts; and the diversion of charity money to private businesses. At the centre of it all is long-time secretary general Mohammad Ashraf, who has recently announced he is stepping down.

Ashraf would not answer a series of questions from the Star.

“Don’t ask me anything,” Ashraf told a reporter who visited the organization’s Mississauga headquarters, marked by a graceful minaret overlooking the Queen Elizabeth Way. The 73-year-old microbiologist said he is “being transitioned into retirement” and that he is “restricted” from commenting on the audit.

ISNA Canada’s elected president, Mohamed Bekkari, told the Star in an interview Wednesday that his organization will toughen financial protocols as a result of the audit. All financial authority has been removed from Ashraf, he said. Bekkari called the findings of the audit, by chartered accountant Fareed Sheik, “unsettling” and a new audit will be ordered that will dig deeper.

The first audit warns that ISNA would risk losing charity status if things are not done differently.

For more than 30 years, Ashraf has been the leader of ISNA, a national organization that is also the hub for Mississauga’s Muslim community. It houses the city’s most visible mosque and provides a variety of services, including a Muslim high school and a halal meat certification agency.

ISNA Canada draws in close to $1 million in charity donations a year. The audit looked closely at one portion of those donations, an obligatory alms giving called Zakat and Fitrah meant to aid the needy. The audit found that of about $810,777 collected over four years, only $196,460 went to aid the poor.

After prayer, Zakat is considered by some Muslims to be the most important pillar of the Islamic faith. It requires Muslims to give a minimum of 2.5 per cent of their wealth each year to the poor.

To mark the beginning of Ramadan, Ashraf sent out a letter in August 2010 urging all of ISNA Canada’s members to donate money for “helping needy Muslims not only in Canada, but all over the World.”

The auditor, brought in by the ISNA Canada board, took issue with how charity cash was used to cover everything from beefing up security — including $60,000 for installing cameras and frequently changing locks — to health benefits for Ashraf’s daughters, even though they don’t work for ISNA Canada.

The organization has been spending more than $6,500 each year on the health plans for Ashraf’s daughters, Saadia and Uzma. Saadia’s premium has since been returned, the audit said.

“Spending for personal expenses out of the charity’s funds is unethical,” the auditor wrote, saying it is “tantamount to misappropriation of funds.”

The audit shows tens of thousands of charity dollars were shuffled from ISNA Canada to its affiliated services and businesses, several of which have secretary-general Ashraf as a director. Federal rules forbid charities from spending donations on business activities that do not aid the charity.

The organization has “put an end” to the inappropriate transferring of money as well as taken “financial matters out of the hands” of Ashraf, Bekkari said.

Ashraf has defended himself in a memo posted on the organization’s website. In it, Ashraf told the members that the audit showed there had been “No instances of fraud, embezzlement, misappropriation of funds or any deliberate wrong doings in handling of the financial affairs of ISNA Canada.”

The auditor noted his scope was limited and “consequently I was not able to follow the trail of funds transferred from ISNA to other organizations.”

“Hence I cannot conclude with certainty that there has been no misappropriation or embezzlement of funds or cash.”

The audit’s scope was in part restricted because the organization’s management refused to give the auditor certain documents, the board’s president said.

ISNA Canada’s board of directors is in the midst of hiring a firm to a conduct a more thorough audit.

“(The audit) raised concerned for us, it opened our eyes,” Bekkari said. “As a board, we need much higher level of certainty to answer your questions.”

The auditor also uncovered multiple cases where Ashraf or the organization inappropriately gave and received charity tax receipts, repeatedly violating federal charity rules.

In a review of the financial statements for the halal meat certification agency, a business branch of the Society that certifies meat as permissible to eat under Islamic rules, the auditor discovered Ashraf had received a $15,000 tax receipt after moving money from the agency’s business account over to ISNA Canada and claiming it was a “personal donation.”

Former board members told the Star Ashraf diverted profits from the certification agency to a secret account from which he paid himself and at least two family members. They say the board had no knowledge of this.

The business’ revenue from the halal certification business is “supposed to come to the parent organization” as the donations do, said Syed Imtiaz Ahmad, former president of ISNA Canada.

“(Ashraf) was directing it to an account he had opened and not telling us,” he said.

The agency’s funds were also used from 2005 to 2009 to pay Ashraf’s wife and one of his daughters nearly $150,000 for a handful of services, from consulting and promotions to putting together a newsletter that comes out four times a year, according to financial statements.

There were also three cases where people received charity tax receipts from ISNA Canada for repaying scholarship loans.

The organization’s management told the auditor the borrowers “insisted that they will return the loan only if the tax receipt is issued.” (Federal charity receipts are only to be issued for true charitable donations).

The Society also issued charity receipts — more than $42,000 in 2009 — to those who purchased funeral services through the organization.

“Tax receipts have to be issued for only donations to the charity and not for any other purposes,” the auditor said in his report.

The organization had a world-renowned Islamic scholar on its payroll, despite her not actually working for ISNA, in a bid to help her immigrate to Canada, the audit revealed.

Farhat Hashmi had been invited to come from Pakistan to deliver lectures several times throughout the mid-2000s.

“This is a serious violation of the (Canadian Revenue Agency) rules and immigration rules to hire someone just in the books to help get through immigration,” the auditor’s report said.

Bekkari, the organization’s president, said he didn’t know any specifics about the scholar or how much she was paid.

“I have bigger issues than that,” he said.

ISNA Canada is governed by a board consisting of 15 members including Ashraf.

Ashraf was contacted multiple times, but repeatedly refused to comment. Attempts to speak with his wife and his daughters were unsuccessful.

Ashraf’s reign at ISNA Canada will come to an end March 31. The online posting announcing Ashraf’s retirement applauded his work for having “been instrumental in the evolution of ISNA Canada” as well as in the development of the organization’s stately mosque in Mississauga.

Islamic Conferences – Politics or Faith?

Posted on October 30, 2010 by Nazim

As far as Islamic conferences go these days – whether ISNA, ICNA, Journey of Faith (JoF), and even RIS – the Global Peace and Unity (GPU) gathering in London (Oct. 23-24), was a success; assuming of course that success can be measured on the basis of a head count. Evidence that Muslims from across the UK and Europe flocked to the GPU in substantial numbers is a clear indication that they deemed irrelevant Prime Minister David Cameron’s opinion that the conference organizer, Islam Channel, facilitates violent extremism in the UK. Reduced to a footnote, unfortunately, is the fact that citizens of that country could afford the luxury of ignoring their PM’s opinion. Had the government of any predominant Muslim country censured a religious conference it would be inconceivable for it to ever take place. Modern day Islamic conferences follow one of two convention models: the evangelical or the political. Anyone who accessed GPU via live streaming video like I did would have witnessed something akin to a political rally decked out with religious paraphernalia, a wide variety of Muslim televangelists and an MC that was too darn perfect for the task.

Moazzem Begg

Regardless of who was speaking or what the message was, the MC egged on the crowd as they shouted pro-Palestinian slogans, waved flags, neon light swords and what appeared to be large gloves with something written on it. If a speaker was slow making his way to the stage, the MC filled the down time with annoying announcements, countless ‘takbirs’ accompanied by loud shouts of ‘Allahu Akbar’, all meant to keep the restless and often times unruly crowd engaged. It was a bizarre spectacle.

One speaker succinctly identified “solutions” to the malaise afflicting the Ummah. Muslim women, he warned, need to observe the hijab and music should be banned from Islamic circles. Zain Bikha’s performance was appropriately timed to follow his act. The audience soaked up both presentations with glee and applause.

Another speaker suggested that because a person could walk safely on the streets of Damascus at 2 am, while the same cannot be said of the cities of Europe and North America, is proof that Islamic law provides a better option to western decadence. The audience missed the absurdity of the comparison and obliviously cheered on.

Yet another speaker reeled off five scientific arguments to prove the divinity of the Quran. The Prophet of Islam could not have known this and since science can’t be wrong, he reasoned, the Quran must be the Word of God. The mob cheered inappropriately. Jeering would have been the right thing to do.

The tone changed dramatically when Dr. Tahir-ul-Qadri and Dr. Abdal Hakim Murad were introduced. Anyone vaguely familiar with either scholar is well aware that they have courageously denounced the idiocy that passes for religious doctrine in the thin circles of Al Qaeda and its affiliates. Dr. Tahir’s fatwa against terrorism and suicide bombing is a no ‘ifs’-and-‘buts’ condemnation of religious heresy in our age. Since GPU and Islam Channel are not his ‘cuppa tea’ what then was he doing at their event?

Surprisingly, Dr. Tahir asked the audience for 30 minutes of their time signaling that his presentation was not going to be a four-hour epic performance. Alone at the podium, no disciples fussing over his seating arrangements, he stormed out of the gates from the get go. His message was eloquently articulate and as usual, extremely loud, leaving no doubt where the majority of Sunni Muslims stand on the issue of Jihad, violence, extremism, radicalism, suicide bombing and terrorism. There was none of the usual qualifiers particularly blaming Western foreign policy for bad tafsir and sharh. Vengeance, hate, and extremism, he pointed out, are the diseases of our age and the sooner Muslims expunge these malignant cancers from their souls, the quicker the healing.

At the risk of sounding redundant let me say I have an allergic reaction to conferences whether Muslim in character or not. I don’t believe they will or have ever accomplished anything. That’s not to say the vendors at GPU’s bazaar who paid £900 for the privilege of selling a few trinkets and some colorful hijabs didn’t recover their cost and then some. The food vendors too may have turned a handsome profit leaving behind a heap of garbage and some messy restrooms for low paying unionized workers to clean up.

Muslim conferences are the biggest public innovation (bid’a) of our age and I am amazed that the Salafis are so dazzled by them. Conferences call people to a venue that is not a mosque to listen to speakers who become the center of gravity for a few days. In the last 30 years of conferences in North America we’ve managed to produce a class of scholars who hop from one conference to another spouting the same old cliché-riddled incoherent speeches. Don’t get me wrong! There are some gems in this group.

I am not ashamed to say that my personal favorite going back to the early 1990’s has been and still is Shaykh Hamza Yusuf. That’s because he stands apart for never repeating a lecture twice except for those early years when he was determined to lead a ‘smash your television revolution’ armed with Jerry Mander and Robert Bly. That was a long time ago. To this day he remains original and engaging because he respects people who he believes deserve a hearty lecture in return for the money they paid to get in.

Today, organizers of Muslim conferences are looking to spice things up by forging a lineup of celebrity speakers and performers on the lofty ideal of ‘Unity’ when all they’re doing is pandering to an already divided community. Deobandis, Berelwis, Salafis, Wahabis, Sufis, and the Shia may momentarily shed their allegiances to attend a conference but that can hardly be considered ‘Unity.’ As for the vast majority of young people, there is no distinction between Shaykh Hamza and Yasir Al-Qadi or Dr. Umar Faruq ‘Abd-Allah and Yusuf Estes or between Imam Zaid Shakir and Khalid Yasin or between Dr. Tahir ul-Qadri and Dr. Zakir Naik. The distinction is blatant: some speakers have knowledge while others know a few things. Conferences are a costly experiment aimed at dumbing down knowledge for the masses. The consequence is that every idiot armed with a hadith can come off as if he knows something.

In a few months thousands of Canadian and American Muslims will trade in their virgin eggnogs to attend the RIS conference where they will get 8-10 lectures in Arabic, a language spoken by a small fraction of those in attendance. There will be no speeches in Urdu, a language understood by the vast majority of those in attendance. The theme of the conference is not the role of mosques or the sacred message of the Quran, the two themes that have been making headlines all year on account of Faisal Abdur Rauf’s controversial Park 51 project and Rev. Terry Jones Quran burning aspirations. Rather, the theme will be the Ten Commandments and something about developing a roadmap.

But people will come, as they did at the GPU, to cheer and applaud and take some time to scour the landscape for a future spouse. I pray they find what they come looking for.

Timothy Winter: Britain’s most influential Muslim – and it was all down to a peach

Posted on August 21, 2010 by Nazim

The Independent. Tom Peck (Friday August 20, 2010)

“How long must the Muslims of lower Manhattan have to wait to get a place to pray five times a day? With Islam there are certain liturgical requirements. It’s not like a church that you can build on the top of a hill and say, we’ve only got to go once a week and it looks nice up there. Muslims need to pray five times a day, they can’t get the subway out and back. It should be seen as a symbol of reconciliation not antagonism.”

Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad - Timothy Winters

It was the sight of peach juice dripping from the chin of a teenage French female nudist that led a Cambridgeshire public schoolboy to convert to Islam. Thirty-five years later, Timothy Winter – or Sheikh Abdul-Hakim Murad, as he is known to his colleagues – has been named one of the world’s most influential Muslims. The hitherto unnoticed Mr Winter, who has an office in Cambridge University’s Divinity Faculty, where he is the Shaykh Zayed Lecturer of Islamic Studies, has been listed ahead of the presidents of Iran and Egypt, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, and the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, Mahmoud Abbas. “Strange bedfellows,” he concedes. Tall, bookish, fair-skinned and flaxen-haired, a wiry beard is his only obvious stylistic concession to the Islamic faith. (Picture of Shaykh Abdal Hakim taken at Niagara Falls, Winter 09-10)

To the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre (RISSC), which is based at the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought in the Jordanian capital, Amman, Winter is “one of the most well-respected Western theologians” and “his accomplishments place him amongst the most significant Muslims in the world”. Winter is also the secretary of the Muslim Academic Trust, director of The Anglo-Muslim Fellowship for Eastern Europe, and director of the Sunna Project, which has published the most respected versions of the major Sunni Hadith collections, the most important texts in Islam after the Qur’an.

He has also written extensively on the origins of suicidal terrorism.

According to the RISSC, the list highlights “leaders and change-agents who have shaped social development and global movements”. Winter is included because “[his] work impacts all fields of work and particularly, the religious endeavors of the Muslim world”.

In the 500 Most Influential Muslims 2010, Mr Winter is below the King of Saudi Arabia – who comes in at number one – but ahead of many more chronicled figures. He is ranked in an unspecified position between 51st and 60th, considerably higher than the three other British people who make the list – the Conservative Party chairman Baroness Warsi; the UK’s first Muslim life peer, Lord Nazir Ahmed, who was briefly jailed last year for dangerous driving; and Dr Anas Al Shaikh Ali, director of the

International Institute of Islamic Thought – making him, at least in the eyes of the RISSC, Britain’s most influential Muslim.

“I think that’s very unlikely,” says Winter, seated in front of his crowded bookshelves. “I’m an academic

observer who descends occcasionally from my ivory tower and visits the real world. If you stop most people in the street they’ve never heard of me. In terms of saying anything that makes any kind of sense to the average British Muslim I think they have no need of my ideas at all.”

The son of an architect and an artist, he attended the elite Westminster School in the 1970s before graduating from Cambridge with a double first in Arabic in 1983. His younger brother is the football correspondent Henry Winter. Tim says: “I was always the clever, successful one. Henry just wanted to play football with his mates. I used to tell him, ‘I’m going to make loads of money, and you’ll still be playing football with your mates.’ Now he’s living in a house with 10 bedrooms and married to a Bond girl.” (Brother Henry insists on the telephone later: “She was only in the opening credits. And it’s not as many as 10.”)

If this seems an improbable background for a leading Muslim academic, his Damascene moment on a Corsican beachis unlikelier still.

“In my teens I was sent off by my parents to a cottage in Corsica on an exchange with a very vigorous French Jewish family with four daughters,” Winter recalls. “They turned out to be enthusiastic nudists.

“I remember being on the beach and seeing conjured up before my adolescent eyes every 15-year-old boy’s most fervent fantasy. There was a moment when I saw peach juice running off the chin of one of these bathing beauties and I had a moment of realisation: the world is not just the consequence of material forces. Beauty is not something that can be explained away just as an aspect of brain function.”

It had quite an effect on him: “That was the first time I became remotely interested in anything beyond the material world. It was an unpromising beginning, you might say.

“In a Christian context, sexuality is traditionally seen as a consequence of the Fall, but for Muslims, it is an anticipation of paradise. So I can say, I think, that I was validly converted to Islam by a teenage French Jewish nudist.”

After graduating, Winter studied at the University of al-Azhar in Egypt and worked in Jeddahat before returned to England in the late eighties to study Turkish and Persian. He says he has no difficulty reconciling the world he grew up in with the one he now inhabits. “Despite all the stereotypes of Islam being the paradigmatic opposite to life in the west, the feeling of conversion is not that one has migrated but that one has come home.

“I feel that I more authentically inhabit my old identity now that I operate within Islamic boundaries than I did when I was part of a teenage generation growing up in the 70s who were told there shouldn’t be any boundaries.”

The challenge, he feels, is much harder now for young Muslims trying to integrate with British life.

“Your average British Asian Muslim on the streets of Bradford or Small Heath in Birmingham is told he has to integrate more fully with the society around him. The society he tends to see around him is extreme spectacles of binge drinking on Saturday nights, scratchcards, and other forms of addiction apparently rampant, credit card debt crushing lives, collapsing relationships and mushrooming proportions of single lives, a drug epidemic. It doesn’t look very nice.

“That is why one of the largest issues over the next 50 years is whether these new Muslim communities can be mobilised to deal with those issues. Islam is tailor-made precisely for all those social prolems. It is the ultimate cold turkey. You don’t drink at all. You don’t sleep around. You don’t do scratchcards. Or whether a kind of increasing polarisation, whereby Muslims look at the degenerating society around them and decide ‘You can keep it’.”

It is not this, though, that contributes to some young Muslim British men’s radicalism, he says, since their numbers are often made up of “the more integrated sections”.

“The principle reason, which Whitehall cannot admit, is that people are incensed by foreign policy. Iraq is a smoking ruin in the Iranian orbit. Those who are from a Muslim background are disgusted by the hypocrisy. It was never about WMD. It was about oil, about Israel and evangelical Christianityin the White House. That makes people incandescent with anger. What is required first of all is an act of public contrition. Tony Blair must go down on his knees and admit he has been responsible for almost unimaginable human suffering and despair.”

He adds: “The West must realise it must stop being the world’s police. Why is there no Islamic represenation on the UN Security Council? Why does the so-called Quartet [on the Middle East] not have a Muslim representative? The American GI in his goggles driving his landrover through Kabul pointing his gun at everything that moves, that is the image that enrages people.”

Is there a similar antagonistic symbolism in the construction of a mosque at Ground Zero?

“If the mosque represented an invading power they would have every right. Muslims in America are there as legitimate citizens with their green cards, with jobs, trying to get by. They are there in humble mode.

“Would you oppose the construction of Shinto Shrines at Pearl Harbour, of which there a number? How long must the Muslims of lower Manhattan have to wait to get a place to pray five times a day? With Islam there are certain liturgical requirements. It’s not like a church that you can build on the top of a hill and say, we’ve only got to go once a week and it looks nice up there. Muslims need to pray five times a day, they can’t get the subway out and back. It should be seen as a symbol of reconciliation not antagonism.”

Last year Winter helped set up the Cambridge Muslim College, which offers trained imams a one year diploma in Islamic studies and leadership, designed to help trained imams to better implement their knowledge and training in 21st-century Britain. This year’s first graduating class have recently returned from a trip to Romewhere they had an open audience with the Pope.

In an increasingly secular Britain, sociologists suggest with regularity that “football is the new religion”. Winter understands the comparison. “Football has everything that is important to religion,” he says. “Solidarity, skill, ritual, the outward form of what looks like a sacred congregation. Except it’s not about anything.” Just don’t tell his brother.

Nazim's Blog

Meditations of a Muslim journalist on the shores of Lake Ontario