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Newsweek International has an interesting story penned by Fareed Zakaria about how the world should accept that a radical Islam exists and how to live with it.

It is not just in the Swat valley that Islamists are on the rise. In Afghanistan the Taliban have been gaining ground for the past two years as well. In Somalia last week, Al-Shabab, a local group of Islamic militants, captured yet another town from government forces. Reports from Nigeria to Bosnia to Indonesia show that Islamic fundamentalists are finding support within their communities for their agenda, which usually involves the introduction of some form of Sharia-Islamic law-reflecting a puritanical interpretation of Islam. No music, no liquor, no smoking, no female emancipation.

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Were he to hold Western, liberal views, Shinwari would have little credibility within his country. The reality-for the worse, in my view-is that radical Islam has gained a powerful foothold in the Muslim imagination. It has done so for a variety of complex reasons that I have written about before. But the chief reason is the failure of Muslim countries to develop, politically or economically. Look at Pakistan. It cannot provide security, justice or education for many of its citizens. Its elected politicians have spent all of their time in office conspiring to have their opponents thrown in jail and their own corruption charges tossed out of court. As a result, President Asif Ali Zardari’s approval rating barely a month into office was around half that enjoyed by President Pervez Musharraf during most of his term. The state is losing legitimacy as well as the capacity to actually govern.

What I would like to understand is why the United States continues to call them extremists and Islamists, while negotiating to bring them into power in Afghanistan? If the United States feels comfortable with Gulbadeen Hekmatyar in power in Afghanistan, how can you honestly criticize Pakistan for making a peace deal with the militants in Swat?

And for reference, when Swat was still a Princely state, prior to 1969, the rule of law in the area was Sharia. Justice was effective, quick and accepted by all, which today’s Pakistan doesn’t have. Being a native of Swat, I know the old system because my family was part of it. It was also part of the agreement made with the Government of Pakistan to when it was included in the Federation.

Is Sharia bad? No. It is an extremely effective form of justice, but it must be interpreted with the honesty and clarity of Solomon. The problem that most of us are concerned about is with the interpretation, not with Sharia itself.

Ever since President-Elect Barack Obama became a serious candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination for the presidency, the right and the ultraright, the Fox News, and the ill-informed segment of the population which follows Fox’s “fair and balanced” news and analysis used Mr. Obama’s middle name and the fact that his grandfather was a Muslim against him. In such propaganda, being a Muslim is tantamount to being evil, having ill will towards the United States, and someone who could not be trusted, especially with the highest office of the land.

As a supporter of Mr. Obama, I was often disappointed that he did not confront such bigotry. His standard reaction to the accusation of being a Muslim – one also enforced by his camp – was always, “I am a Christian; I have never been a Muslim.” It really bothered me and people like me when, for example, last June Mr. Obama’s aids removed from the front row of a rally in Detroit a few Muslim women with their Islamic hejab – cover for their hair – because they did want them to be seen in photos with Mr. Obama.

Although people like me never liked the way our President-Elect handled the “issue” of his Islamic “heritage,” and even though my like-minded friends and I have been apprehensive about what he may do in the Middle East and the Islamic world, we wanted, more than anything else and above all, Mr. Obama to be elected the 44th President of the United States. The thought of living in a Bush-3 regime under John McCain was just too painful and frightening, and the dream of breaking the racial barrier with all of its consequences was too enticing. Pragmatism and the realities of America in the post-9/11 era also dictated our silence. We put our worries and unease in the backburner.

Now, however, our candidate has won by a landslide. Now, he does not have to worry about the accusation of being a closet Muslim as a campaign issue. Now, the elections have shown that the people have moved, to a large extent, beyond race as a barrier to the highest office of the land. Now, our President-Elect has won a mandate for fundamental changes, part of which should be cultural.

Mr. Obama is not, of course, a Muslim. He believes in the Christian faith. As a practicing Muslim, I have the highest respect for his faith. In my mind, Jesus Christ is the all-time symbol of kindness, forgiveness, and sacrifice for the sake of others. Thus, as a follower of Christ, Mr. Obama should set the record straight about the injustice that has been done to true Islam in this country.

Mr. Obama should now use the same eloquence; the same type of powerful speeches, and the same cool, intelligent, deliberate manner with which he mesmerized us all, to lead the people beyond the bigotry of hating Muslims, simply because they are Muslim. He should simply declare:

So what if I am a Muslim? Read the rest of this entry »

I just read this on the Washington Post website and think that most of us need to join this school of thought. Islam is not served by the people who commit these acts or those who support them. Add your comments below.

Ramadan is the ninth month in the Islamic calendar and serves as a spiritual boot camp for Muslims. In this month, Muslims fast from dawn to dusk everyday; abstaining from food, water, sex and anything unpleasant and immoral. One is not allowed to get angry, speak rudely or even think of bad things. The purpose of the month is to take a break from deep entanglements in mundane affairs and make a systematic and concerted effort to reconnect with the divine and work on improving one’s personal moral character. 

For me, Ramadan is about returning to the fountain of truth and drinking from it as deeply as possible. It is not the parched throat but rather the parched soul that is my concern, so I study the Qur’an and contemplate on it. Other Muslims adhere more closely to rituals. I believe that while rituals discipline, knowledge is more transformative. But to each his own. The goal in Ramadan is really is to find a way, ritual, spiritual or intellectual, to get closer to God.

Unfortunately, for some Muslims, murder and mayhem rather than prayer and fasting have become the way to celebrate Ramadan.

On September 6, in the first week of Ramadan, two suicide bombers killed over 50 people in Peshawar, Pakistan. On September 13, five bombs killed over 30 in New Delhi, India. On September 15, a female suicide bomber blew herself up at a Ramadan fast breaking ceremony killing 22 people in Diyala, Iraq. On September 17, a truck bomb and some militants attacked the US embassy in San’a, Yemen killing 16 people. And on September 20, a massive truck bomb killed over 60 people in Islamabad, Pakistan.

All of these attacks have been conducted by people who call themselves “Jihadis”, this they claim is their struggle in the path of God. One cannot imagine to what extent the minds and the hearts of these people have become poisoned that in the month of Ramadan, when even frowning is undesirable, they chose to murder and maim indiscriminately. The most incomprehensible aspect of these atrocities is that a vast majority of their victims are the very people on whose behalf these wars are waged!

If they want to fight and die for God, they are welcome. There are over 200,000 American soldiers, in Iraq and Afghanistan, who are there specifically to oblige them, why not go and fight them.

These cowards, who call themselves Jihadis, run and hide from soldiers seeking to fight them and instead target helpless and unarmed civilians. They repeatedly confirm that they have no regard for social order, for law, for human life and even for the sacred injunctions from the God whose pleasure they seek through violence. Read the rest of this entry »

A LARGE number of countries in the world like being called democracies on the basis of holding periodic elections in the presence of international observers and on the laws that they enact through their functional cabinets or parliaments. Many also claim to be governed by the rule of law, stating that they are guided by their constitutions in keeping their social contract and taking important public decisions.

Many resources are committed by the US in developing democracy promotion strategies. However, the experience of EU accession agreements with the new applicants setting up clear targets for membership suggests that conditionally may be more effective in promoting democracy than mere incentives. There are also periodic reports which “name and shame” countries on the basis of democratic yardsticks such as political rights and civil liberties, human rights violations, corruption and on meeting international goals.What is, however, needed now is investment in resources and tools for building the architecture of democracy in countries which are democracies only in name. This is a gigantic task. The design of democracy requires that in order to be effective, several of its components should be working efficiently and in accordance with international treaties, non-binding declarations and political commitments of national leaders.

These components consist of a modern constitution; separation of powers with proper checks and balances; an independent judiciary; electoral and political processes that deliver representative and responsible government; instruments of accountability, public scrutiny and transparency; the contribution made by women in politics and conflict-resolution; the comfort level of minorities and other marginal groups in the political system; protection of human rights and freedom of assembly, belief and expression; and devolution of powers. Read the rest of this entry »

“Anyone willing to sacrifice liberty for safety deserves neither” – Ben Franklin

This is a rather old story, but I completely agree with the movement that has started because of it. Raed Jarrar, an architect of Iraqi decent, was forced to remove a t-shirt that bore the words “We will not be silent,” otherwise he was not going to be allowed to board his flight. The full story can be read here, here and here, but for those who want the basic information……

Raed Jarrar had cleared security at John F. Kennedy airport in New York for a Jet Blue flight back to his home in California when two men approached him and asked to check his ID and boarding pass. He was told that a number of passengers had complained about his t-shirt and asked him to remove it. He refused arguing that the slogan was not offensive and citing his constitutional rights to free expression, but after an exchange with member of the airline’s staff, he was “persuaded to wear another t-shirt bought for him at the airport shop.”

The phrase “We will not be silent” is a slogan that was made popular by the White Rose dissident group which opposed Nazi rule in Germany. Raed gave a profound insight while speaking with a New York radio station “I grew up and spent my life under authoritarian regimes and I know that these things happen, but I’m shocked that this happened to me here in the US.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s have a little chat… I am going to break away from the normal polite and professional tone that I maintain on this blog to discuss what should be done about the Hudood Ordinance which continues to plague this great nation. It should be repealed.

Now for those who ask why:

Any law that victimizes women in the name of religion must go.

I have read my Quran and nowhere does it say that women are to be victimized by the rule of man. As a matter of fact, the Quran clearly states that women are equal to men in all ways. It is the crazed, foaming at the mouth mullahs that have turned Pakistan into their own playground with their “interpretations” of the Holy Quran. Read the rest of this entry »