Eloquent Incoherence

The BBC’s West Bank correspondent Paul Adams offers some excellent insight into the recent conflict in Gaza and the deep divisions within the Palestinian leadership. Adams discusses Hamas’ takeover of Gaza and Fatah’s subsequent consolidation of its authority in the West Bank within the context of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which allowed Fatah leaders to return from exile and assume internationally-recognized, albeit limited, civil authority over the West Bank and Gaza. According to Adams, the new arrivals from Fatah arrogantly brushed aside Palestinian leaders that had held the fort in their absence and openly flaunted their misappropriation of the foreign aid they received as part of the Accords, construcing extravagant villas for themselves in the heart of impoverished neighborhoods. This corruption and ineptitude caused widespread disillusionment and spurred the rise of Hamas, which culminated with its surprising victory in the January 2006 elections and predicated the current crisis. The shocking manner in which Hamas fighters executed their Fatah adversaries and looted the property of Fatah leaders in Gaza was thus as much an act of revenge and reprisal as it was a show of force.

In any case, the degeneration of the Palestinian struggle into a gangland-style war between factions is much simpler than the “Fatah good, Hamas bad” dichotomy often portrayed in the media. But that’s not good news; judging by their actions since taking power, Hamas likely won’t fare any better than their rivals did. Hamas brought little relief to the Palestinians during its tenure as part of the short-lived unity government. Though it persisted in refusing to recognize Israel despite the crippling economic sanctions its position brought on, Hamas presented no practical alternative path to resolving the crisis.   And, as explained by BBC correspondent Jeremy Bowen, there’s little indication that Hamas’ leadership can control the masked gunmen that now patrol the streets of Gaza. Despite the apparent reality that neither side has a coherent vision for the future, nobody seems willing to back down. And so the tragedy of Palestine continues to unfold.

The Bush Administration recently fired seven U.S. attorneys. Firing a U.S. attorney is a drastic and rare action usually taken only in extraordinary circumstances (by comparison, of the 486 U.S. attorneys appointed between 1981 and 2006, only 3 were fired). The seven fired U.S. attorneys had solid resumes and good records, and some were replaced by candidates with weaker credentials but strong Republican connections. Particularly alarming was the dismissal of H.E. Cummins, a distinguished and well-respected U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Arkansas. Mr. Cummins was replaced with J. Timothy Griffin, a former deputy to Karl Rove who has limited legal experience but did opposition research for the Republican National Committee.

The position of U.S. attorney is a powerful and prestigious post; U.S. attorneys prosecute headline-grabbing cases involving terrorism, corporate misgovernance, corruption, and other high-profile crimes. U.S. attorneys have traditionally been insulated from political pressures and executive meddling, but Bush’s recent purges were made possible by a little-known provision of the Patriot Act that allows the president to appoint interim U.S. attorneys for an indefinite period without Senate confirmation. Adam Cohen’s column in the New York Times suggests three theories for this “political purge”:

1. Helping friends. Ms. Lam (one of the fired attorneys) had already put one powerful Republican congressman in jail and was investigating other powerful politicians. The Justice Department, unpersuasively, claims that it was unhappy about Ms. Lam’s failure to bring more immigration cases. Meanwhile, Ms. Lam has been replaced with an interim prosecutor whose résumé shows almost no criminal law experience, but includes her membership in the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group.

2. Candidate recruitment. U.S. attorney is a position that can make headlines and launch political careers. Congressional Democrats suspect that the Bush administration has been pushing out long-serving U.S. attorneys to replace them with promising Republican lawyers who can then be run for Congress and top state offices.

3. Presidential politics. The Justice Department concedes that Mr. Cummins was doing a good job in Little Rock. An obvious question is whether the administration was more interested in his successor’s skills in opposition political research — let’s not forget that Arkansas has been lucrative fodder for Republicans in the past — in time for the 2008 elections.

One of the greatest aspects of the system of government established by our founding fathers is the seperation of powers into executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. No branch of government can amass too much power, and each branch acts as a check on the other branches. The process of appointing federal judges and U.S. attorneys (Presidential nomination followed by Congressional confirmation) is an important element of this separation of powers. The magnitude of Bush’s successful attempt to bypass the process can’t be understated. The Patriot Act’s sweeping expansions of executive power have enabled Bush to install cronies in powerful positions with the authority to investigate and prosecute (or, more importantly, the authority to refrain from doing so). These developments are alarming not only because of these immediate consequences, but because of the precedent they set in upsetting the delicate balance of authority that is a hallmark of American democracy. Though such excesses would normally be regarded as policies unbecoming of the United States, they seem to have become a sad reality of life under the Bush Administration.

The 1947 partition of India is one of the most fiercely debated subjects amongst expatriate South Asian Muslims. The stated purpose behind the creation of Pakistan was to ensure the preservation of the South Asian Muslim community as a distinct nation with its own norms and culture. An unfortunate (and ironic) side effect of this was that the overwhelming majority of landmarks, institutions, and historic centers of Islamic Civilization in the Subcontinent ended up on the wrong side of the border. The capital of the Mughal Empire, the most prominent of the Muslim dynasties through which Islam came to influence every aspect of Indian culture and history, was at Delhi. Three of the most influential movements within contemporary Sunni Islam–The Barelvi Movement, the Deobandi Movement, and the Tablighi Jamaat–originated in or near modern-day Uttar Pradesh. Lucknow, also in Uttar Pradesh, was the Subcontinent’s most prominent center of Islamic learning and culture where the Urdu language was born and from which some of the world’s most eminent Muslim scholars and poets hailed. Hyderabad, built by the Qutb Shahi Sultanate, was a similarly vibrant center of Muslim culture. The Dargah at Ajmer, home to the mausoleum of Sufi saint Khawaja Moinuddin Chishti, is among the most visited religious sites in the Subcontinent by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Aligarh Muslim University, the first institution of higher learning set up during the British Raj, still stands at Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh. The first mosque in the Subcontinent (which was also one of the first mosques outside of Arabia) is located at Kodungallur in modern-day Kerala and was built in the late seventh century by the Prophet’s (SAW) companion Malik ibn Dinar. And who can forget the Taj Mahal, built at Agra by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan.

Though the regions that came to form Pakistan have their share of Muslim landmarks and historic centers of civilization, few of them rival the aforementioned sites and institutions in terms of historic significance. The creation of Pakistan has yet to usher in the Islamic renaissance that Iqbal and others had hoped would give rise to modern centers of Islamic civilization; to the extent that the Pakistan movement was an attempt to re-create the golden age of the Mughal Empire, it has so far been unsuccessful. Though a 150 million-strong Muslim community remains in India, their status as a largely underprivileged minority comprising no more than 15% of the population limits the extent to which Islamic Civilization can continue to thrive in India. And the intermittent tide of Hindu nationalism is an ever-present threat to the remaining vestiges of Islam’s cultural legacy in the Subcontinent (Remember Ayodhya and Gujarat?).

I do not mean to imply that I believe the creation of Pakistan was a mistake. There were other factors at stake, and the issue is not a black-and-white one. But the exodus of Muslims from India effectively orphaned much of the cultural heritage of Islam in the Subcontinent, and unwittingly aided the cause of those Indians who see Islam as a “foreign” influence worthy of eradication. The result has been an effect not unlike the loss of Andalusia 500 years ago. The difference is that South Asian Muslims voluntarily abandoned part of their heritage in search of a dominance they have yet to achieve.

According to a report by the Justice Department Inspector General, the FBI lost 160 laptops and a number of weapons during a 44-month period ending September 30, 2005. Of these 160 laptops, 10 contained classified information and 51 may or may not have contained classified information. Believe it or not, the figures represent an improvement over the FBI’s prior record of handling sensitive inventory; the Bureau lost 300 laptops and 300 weapons during the previous 28-month period. That’s an average of over 10 laptops and 10 weapons lost every month over the course of two years and four months.

In response to the report, Assistant FBI director John Miller acknowledged the problem and noted the “significant progress” the Bureau has made in the past five years. Miller also took issue with the report’s count of missing weapons, claiming that 43 of the unaccounted weapons should not have been counted because they had been reported missing prior to the time period covered by the report. In other words, “you can’t count those weapons; they were missing from a long time ago.”

Ladies and gentlemen, your tax dollars at work.

There’s an interesting article in the New York Times about Shi’a-Sunni tensions within the Muslim community in the United States. The article mentions the Muslim Students Association here at the University of Michigan, as well as the Muslim community in Southeastern Michigan (home to the largest concentration of Muslims in North America).

(courtesy of Lubna)

According to this article, the ongoing escalation of Shi’a-Sunni tensions is the result of American efforts to foster and encourage sectarian infighting in the Muslim World. The article claims that the campaign is part of the United States’ anti-Iran policy and is supported by the Arab regimes, who perceive Iran as their biggest threat and rival in the Middle East.

Although I agree with such claims insofar as they are presented as a political analysis, Muslims often exhibit a troubling tendency to attribute sectarian violence exclusively to external forces while ignoring the Muslim role in perpetuating it. There comes a point where we Muslims need to take responsibility for our own shortcomings. Our enemies do indeed have an interest in fostering hatred and distrust between Shi’a and Sunnis, but we’re the ones who are giving them ample opportunities to do so. It’s not Americans who are attacking Shi’a Ashura processions. It’s not Americans who are gunning down worshipers in Shi’a masajid. It’s not Americans who are issuing fatawa pronouncing takfir (excommunication) on the Shi’a, calling them “al-Rawafidh” (the deviants), and deeming them worse than the Jews and Christians. And it’s not Americans who are inspired by these fatawa to perpetrate such horrible crimes. Even here in the United States, many Shi’a can share stories about how they’ve been kicked out of Sunni masajid and discriminated against by their Sunni “brothers”. At some Sunni masajid in the West (usually those with strong Salafi contingents), anti-Shi’a propaganda (usually published by Saudi-backed “da’wah” centers) can be found among the newsletters, fliers, and other materials left for distribution after Friday prayer. Although the majority of Muslims do not harbor hatred toward the Shi’a, this alarming prevalence of anti-Shi’a violence and rhetoric indicates that there are serious problems in our Ummah. Even if external forces are behind such nonsense, whom must we ultimately blame if Muslims are doing the dirty work?

Does the United States manipulate and exacerbate divisions in the Muslim World to serve its own ends? Of course it does. But this is nothing new; these are the same tactics European colonialists used to bring most of the Muslim World under Western domination a century ago. At some point, we need to look inward and acknowledge some painful realities about our own issues. Blaming every problem on America is a counter-productive form of denial and self-delusion.

There are some fights that I wish Muslim-Americans wouldn’t pick. Muslim cab drivers in Minneapolis (who are mostly of Somali descent) are apparently refusing service to passengers who are accompanied by dogs (including disabled passengers with guide dogs) or carrying alcohol. Commissioners of the Minneapolis airport (from which a significant portion of taxi passengers originate) are considering suspending drivers who refuse service to passengers on these grounds. In my opinion, this is a foolish and dangerous battle for these cabbies to be fighting, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, I’m no sheikh, but it seems to me that there are no simple, unambiguous Islamic rules relating to the issues in question. The majority position on dogs in Sunni jurisprudence relates to the impurity of their saliva, hair, and skin, not their mere presence in a particular place (except the home, which is not at issue here). Typically, a taxi driver never comes into contact with his passenger’s dog. And even if he does, each of the three Sunni madhabs (Islamic schools of jurisprudence) that prohibit contact with dogs allows exemptions for hunting and guard dogs, a category that guide dogs presumably fall into. Furthermore, the Maliki madhab does not consider any part of the dog to be impure and does not prohibit contact with them. The cabbies’ refusal to transport passengers carrying alcohol apparently derives from ahadith (oral traditions of the Prophet Muhammad, SAW) that appear to prohibit not just the consumption but also the sale, production, and distribution of alcohol. However, scholars in some Muslim countries that purport to enforce Islamic Law (such as Saudi Arabia) allow non-Muslims to sell and purchase alcohol and carry it aboard flights (which are presumably flown by Muslim pilots). Even in pre-modern times, Muslim rulers (with the blessing of the ‘ulema) traditionally allowed Christian minorities to import wine for use in their religious ceremonies.

Secondly, any litigation these cabbies pursue might set a bad precedent that could make it difficult for Muslims fighting legitimate cases of discrimination. Legally, these cabbies have very little chance of convincing a court that being allowed to refuse service to passengers is a “reasonable accommodation” of their religious beliefs. If the cabbies’ fight actually makes it into an appeals court and is struck down, the court’s opinion could subsequently be used by an unscrupulous employer against a Muslim fighting for the right to pray or keep a beard/hijab at work. Each legal battle Muslims pursue in the courts can’t be viewed in isolation. Our efforts to preserve our rights to practice our religion at work or school must be conducted within an overall strategy, and picking a fight you have no hope of winning is a pretty foolish strategy.

Thirdly, one of the most important battles Muslims are currently fighting is in the hearts and minds of our neighbors and colleagues. Attempting to impose our rules on others reinforces perceptions that Muslims are intolerant fanatics. Worse, it potentially gives publicity to the whacko bigots who insist that Muslim-Americans are evil infiltrators seeking to implement Shari’ah in America. Our community can ill afford to give our enemies more ammunition during a time of intensifying scrutiny of Islam and Muslims. The Minneapolis cabbies and those who counsel them would do well to weigh these concerns before pressing forward with this ill-advised fight.

As if the situation in Iraq couldn’t get any worse, Iraqi and American forces say they foiled an assassination plot targeting Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and other Shi’a religious leaders. 250 fighters were killed in the operation. The plot was apparently part of a broader attempt by a militia to gain control of the city of Najaf, home of the Imam Ali Shrine. The plot was timed to coincide with Ashura, a holy day on which the Shi’a stage public processions to mark the martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad’s (SAW) grandson Hussain.

When I first heard this news, I figured it was just another instance of Sunni extremists attacking the Shi’a on their holy day. But the plot was apparently the work of a group called the Jund as-Samaa (”Soldiers of Heaven”), some kind of messianic cult. This was the first instance I’ve heard of an Iraqi insurgent group (or resistance movement, depending on your perspective) being referred to by the media as a cult. According to CNN, the group contained both Shi’a and Sunni elements, and its leader (who was killed in the fighting) claimed to be the Mahdi, a messiah whom Muslims believe will emerge near the end of time to restore peace and justice in the world (although both the Shi’a and the Sunnis believe in the concept of the Mahdi, the idea figures much more prominently in Shi’a thought). I can’t seem to find much more information about this particular group or why they wanted to kill Sistani; all the media reports I’ve read are vague on the matter. It’s certainly a bizarre and alarming turn of events. The fact that this movement was able to attract hundreds of followers is an indication of how desperate the situation in Iraq has become; apparently, some Iraqis have taken the ongoing violence as a sign of the apocalypse.

In any event, I’m glad the plot was foiled. Sistani is the highest-ranking Shi’a religious leader in the world. Unlike the Sunnis, the Shi’a have a tightly-structured, hierarchical system of religious authority similar to Catholicism. Sistani’s assassination might have plunged the entire region into all-out war, and would have exacerbated Shi’a-Sunni tensions across the Muslim World. Sistani is also one of the few voices of reason in the ongoing struggle for Iraq’s future, and his assassination would have dealt a tremendous blow to the prospects for peace in Iraq any time soon.

This is one of the reasons why I’m, at times, ashamed that I live in America.

(courtesy of Imran)

This is one of the reasons why I’m happy that I live in America.

(courtesy of Imran)