American Muslims Face Charged Climate Since 9/11

Asserting Their Identity:

By HALIMAH ABDULLAH
McClatchy Newspapers
Courtesy Of "The Kansas City Star"

Javed "Hijabman" Memon peddles the kind of post-9/11, self-referential, satire-laced merchandise that's become a fixture for Islamic hipsters eager to voice their frustration at a decade relegated to the fringes as members of the scary Muslim "other."

"My name causes national security alerts. What does yours do?"

"Frisk me, I'm Muslim."

"Don't hate me because I am Muslim (and beautiful)."

Memon, 29, remembers what it was like growing up as one of the few Muslims in Yardley, Pa., then an upper-middle-class, predominantly white and Protestant town. Before 9/11, most of his high school classmates didn't know what a Muslim was and hurled the more general "dot head" or "towel head" slurs his way.

But when the mother of a bullied Muslim teen from a small town recently bought Memon's T-shirts, she told him that they "provided him a way to own that - take it and throw it back in their face."

Just after the Sept. 11 attacks ripped an irrevocable hole in both the New York City skyline and the nation's psyche, Muslim Americans stepped gingerly out of existences once quietly lived in the shadows. Ten years later, Muslims in the United States are just a bit more sure-footed as they navigate a highly emotionally and politically charged climate.

In the post-9/11 era, the choice to don or eschew a head covering or "hijab" at work is at once an issue of religious and identity politics and the stuff of countless civil liberties lawsuits.

For Muslims, life post-9/11 means building in a little extra time for random security checks when planning to fly and the realization that, because of those checks, electronic boarding is often just not an option.

They exchange knowing glances with other Muslims at the airport when it seems that only those with Arabic names are searched or not allowed to board - as was the case earlier this year when two imams flying to a conference on Islamophobia were brought off the plane to undergo an additional security check.

It meant collective breath-holding in 2009 when a gunman went on a mass shooting spree in Fort Hood, Texas, and sinking dismay tinged with just a hint of shame when it was learned that, yes, the suspect, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was indeed a Muslim. And it meant a redoubling of efforts at mosques across the nation to open doors and invite non-Muslim neighbors in to learn more about the faith.

For many American Muslims, it meant high blood pressure-inducing outrage last year when commentator Juan Williams told the Fox News Channel: "When I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

But it also meant private conversations with Muslim and non-Muslim friends and colleagues about whether Williams was just speaking a truth that many people don't want to admit because it isn't politically correct.

American Muslims "are in this constant state of apologetics. It is exhausting," said Jen'nan Ghazal Read, associate professor of sociology and global health at Duke University.

"I talk to Muslims all the time who say they hope they don't wake up and there's some bad story about Muslims. There's this constant 'when's the next shoe going to drop' mentality."

Despite a decade in which Muslim Americans have tried to show patriotism and educate non-Muslim friends and neighbors, polls show that many people in the United States remain wary of Islam or don't know much about it.

In a poll last year by the Pew Research Center, only 30 percent of Americans said they had favorable views of Islam, down from 41 percent in 2005.

In the same poll, just 44 percent said they knew at least some information about the Muslim religion; the numbers have changed little in the past four years.

In the past year alone, there have been heated debates over the rights of Muslim congregations to build houses of worship within blocks of Ground Zero in New York and in a suburban community of Nashville, Tenn. Lawmakers in more than a dozen states have offered measures banning Sharia law, the religious guidelines that influence Muslims in their faith much as the Ten Commandments guide Christians.

And Muslims, who turned out in record numbers for the 2008 election, have grown increasingly political. There are now two Muslim members of Congress and a number of Muslims hold state and local government offices.

"As a reaction to some of the negative policies, I think American Muslims started to become aware that we have to get rid of some of the extremism in our community but also participate in democracy," said Saqib Ali, a former Maryland state delegate.

For younger Muslims who came into adulthood during and after the 9/11 attacks, this business of trying to prove to non-Muslim neighbors that they, too, live lives of normalcy has grown just a bit stale.

Movements such as Taqwacore, a burgeoning Islamic punk rock scene, and music groups like the Kominas challenge both radical Islam and post-9/11 religious profiling with in-your-face lyrics, hard guitar riffs and screeching vocals.

Other groups, such as the popular Washington-based Muslim rap group Native Deen strike a universal chord by blending hip-hop beats and R&B influences with lyrics that speak to concerns about profiling - but also the joys of fasting during the holy month of Ramadan and what it feels like to have "Sakina," or tranquility.

"The spotlight was placed on the Muslim community and we had to do some looking into ourselves and make sure we are who we say we are," said Native Deen group member Abdul-Malik Ahmad, 35.

"Before, Muslims were hesitant to claim their identity because of what was going on in the Middle East and foreign policy. After 9/11 they realized the need was to assert that identity."

Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an

Written By Sebastian R. Prange
Volume 62, Number 4
July / August 2011
Courtesy Of "Saudi-Aramco World"

acing the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. stands the Jefferson Building, the main building of the Library of Congress, the world's largest library, with holdings of more than 140 million books and other printed items.The stately building, with its neoclassical exterior, copper-plated dome and marble halls, is named after Thomas Jefferson, one of the "founding fathers" of the United States, principal author of the 1776 Declaration of Independence and, from 1801 to 1809, the third president of the young republic. But the name also recognizes Jefferson's role as a founder of the Library itself. As president, he enshrined the institution in law and, in 1814, after a fire set by British troops during the Anglo-American War destroyed the Library's 3000-volume collection, he offered all or part of his own wide-ranging book collection as a replacement for the losses, commenting that "there is in fact no subject to which a member of Congress may not have occasion to refer."

Among the nearly 6500 books Jefferson sold to the Library was a two-volume English translation of the Qur'an, the book Muslims recite, study and revere as the revealed word of God. The presence of this Qur'an, first in Jefferson's private library and later in the Library of Congress, prompts the questions why Jefferson purchased this book, what use he made of it, and why he included it in his young nation's repository of knowledge.

These questions are all the more pertinent in light of assertions by some present- day commentators that Jefferson purchased his Qur'an in the 1780's in response to conflict between the us and the "Barbary states" of North Africa—today Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. That was a conflict Jefferson followed closely— indeed, in 1786, he helped negotiate a treaty with Morocco, the United States' first treaty with a foreign power. Then, it was relations with Algeria that were the most nettlesome, as its ruler demanded the payment of tribute in return for ending semiofficial piracy of American merchant shipping. Jefferson staunchly opposed tribute payment. In this context, such popular accounts claim, Jefferson was studying the Qur'an to better understand these adversaries, in keeping with the adage "know thy enemy." However, when we look more closely at the place of this copy of the Qur'an in Jefferson's library—and in his thinking— and when we examine the context of this particular translation, we see a different story.

rom his youth, Thomas Jefferson read and collected a great number of books, and a wide variety of them: The collection he eventually sold to the Library of Congress comprised 6487 volumes, ranging in subject from classical philosophy to cooking. Like many collectors of the time, Jefferson not only cataloged his books but also marked them. It is his singular way of marking his books that makes it possible to establish that, among the millions of volumes in today's Library of Congress, this one specific Qur'an did indeed belong to him.

The initials "T.J." were Thomas Jefferson's device for marking his books: On this page, the "T." is the printer's mark to help the binder keep each 16-page "gathering" in sequence, and the "J." was added personally by Jefferson.

In the 18th century, the production of books was still an essentially manual process. By means of a hand press, large sheets of paper were printed on both sides with multiple pages before being folded. They were folded once to produce four pages for the folio size, twice to produce eight pages for thequarto or four times to produce the 16-page octavo. These folded sheets, known as "gatherings," were then sewn together along their inner edges before being attached to the binding. To ensure that the bookbinders would stitch the gatherings together in the correct sequence, each was marked with a different letter of the alphabet on what, after folding, would become that gathering's first page.

Thus, in an octavo volume like Jefferson's Qur'an, there is a small printed letter in the bottom right-hand corner of every 16th page. It was Jefferson's habit to take advantage of these preexisting marks to discreetly inscribe each of his books. On each book's 10th gathering, in front of the printer's mark J he wrote a letter T, and on the 20th gathering, to the printed T he added a J, thereby in each case producing his initials. This subtle yet unmistakable signature appears clearly on the two leather-bound volumes in the Library of Congress.

Jefferson's system of cataloging his library sheds light on the place the Qur'an held in his thinking. Jefferson's 44-category classification scheme was much informed by the work of Francis Bacon (1561–1626), whose professional trajectory from lawyer to statesman to philosopher roughly prefigures Jefferson's own career. According to Bacon, the human mind comprises three faculties: memory, reason and imagination. This trinity is reflected in Jefferson's library, which he organized into history, philosophy and fine arts. Each of these contained subcategories: philosophy, for instance, was divided into moral and mathematical; continuing along the former branch leads to the subdivision of ethics and jurisprudence, which itself was further segmented into the categories of religious, municipal and "oeconomical."

Jefferson's system for organizing his library has often been described as a "blueprint of his own mind." Jefferson kept his Qur'an in the section on religion, located between a book on the myths and gods of antiquity and a copy of the Old Testament. It is illuminating to note that Jefferson did not class religious works with books on history or ethics—as might perhaps be expected—but that he regarded their proper place to be within jurisprudence.

Jefferson organized his own library, and he shelved religious books, including his English version of the Qur'an, with other works under "Jurisprudence," which fell under "Moral Philosophy."

The story of Jefferson's purchase of the Qur'an helps to explain this classification. Sifting through the records of the Virginia Gazette, through which Jefferson ordered many of his books, the scholar Frank Dewey discovered that Jefferson bought this copy of the Qur'an around 1765, when he was still a student of law at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. This quickly refutes the notion that Jefferson's interest in Islam came in response to the Barbary threat to shipping. Instead, it situates his interest in the Qur'an in the context of his legal studies—a conclusion that is consistent with his shelving of it in the section on jurisprudence.

Jefferson's legal interest in the Qur'an was not without precedent. There is of course the entire Islamic juridical tradition of religious law(Shari'ah) based on Qur'anic exegesis, but Jefferson had an example at hand that was closer to his own tradition: The standard work on comparative law during his time was Of the Law of Nature and Nations, written by the German scholar Samuel von Pufendorf and first published in 1672. As Dewey shows, Jefferson studied Pufendorf's treatise intensively and, in his own legal writings, cited it more frequently than any other text. Pufendorf's book contains numerous references to Islam and to the Qur'an. Although many of these were disparaging—typical for European works of the period—on other occasions Pufendorf cited Qur'anic legal precedents approvingly, including the Qur'an's emphasis on promoting moral behavior, its proscription of games of chance and its admonition to make peace between warring countries. As Kevin Hayes, another eminent Jefferson scholar, writes: "Wanting to broaden his legal studies as much as possible, Jefferson found the Qur'an well worth his attention."

" We the General Assembly of Virginia do enact that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their
civil capacities."

— From the Virginia Statute for
Religious Freedom, ratified 1786;
drafted by Thomas Jefferson in 1777

In his reading of the Qur'an as a law book, Jefferson was aided by a relatively new English translation that was not only technically superior to earlier attempts, but also produced with a sensitivity that was not unlike Jefferson's own emerging attitudes. Entitled The Koran; commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed, it was prepared by the Englishman George Sale and published in 1734 in London. A second edition was printed in 1764, and it was this edition that Jefferson bought. Like Jefferson, Sale was a lawyer, although his heart lay in oriental scholarship. In the preface to his translation, he lamented that the work "was carried on at leisure time only, and amidst the necessary avocations of a troublesome profession." This preface also informed the reader of Sale's motives: "If the religious and civil Institutions of foreign nations are worth our knowledge, those of Mohammed, the lawgiver of the Arabians, and founder of an empire which in less than a century spread itself over a greater part of the world than the Romans were ever masters of, must needs be so." Like Pufendorf, Sale stressed Muhammad's role as a "lawgiver" and the Qur'an as an example of a distinct legal tradition.

This is not to say that Sale's translation is free of the kind of prejudices against Muslims that characterize most European works on Islam of this period. However, Sale did not stoop to the kinds of affronts that tend to fill the pages of earlier such attempts at translation. To the contrary, Sale felt himself obliged to treat "with common decency, and even to approve such particulars as seemed to me to deserve approbation." In keeping with this commitment, Sale described the Prophet of Islam as "richly furnished with personal endowments, beautiful in person, of a subtle wit, agreeable behaviour, shewing liberality to the poor, courtesy to every one, fortitude against his enemies, and, above all, a high reverence for the name of God." This portrayal is markedly different from those of earlier translators, whose primary motive was to assert the superiority of Christianity.

In addition to the relative liberality of Sale's approach, he also surpassed earlier writers in the quality of his translation. Previous English versions of the Qur'an were not based on the original Arabic, but rather on Latin or French versions, a process that layered fresh mistakes upon the errors of their sources. Sale, by contrast, worked from the Arabic text. It was not true, as Voltaire claimed in his famous Dictionnaire philosophique of 1764, thatle savant Sale had acquired his Arabic skills by having lived for 25 years among Arabs; rather, Sale had learnt the language through his involvement in preparing an Arabic translation of the New Testament to be used by Syrian Christians, a project that was underwritten by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge in London. Studying alongside Arab scholars who had come to London to assist in this work, he acquired within a few years such good command of the language that he was able to serve as a proofreader of the Arabic text.

"In this Qur'an, We have put forward all kinds of illustrations for people, so that they may take heed—an Arabic Qur'an, free from any distortion."

That quotation from Surah 39, Verses 27-28, of the Qur'an was rendered into English by Muhammad A. S. Abdel Haleem, Professor of Islamic Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. It emphasizes a basic yet far-reaching fact about the holy book of Islam: It was received and recorded in the Arabic language. Muslims believe that the Qur'an is inseparable from the language in which it was revealed, and for this reason, all Muslims worldwide recite it in Arabic, even though today the vast majority of Muslims are neither Arabs nor native speakers of Arabic. Many Muslims also regard the eloquence of the Qur'an as evidence of its divine provenance. A popular story recounts how, in the time of Muhammad, the most famous poet of Makkah converted to Islam after reading one of its verses, convinced that no human could ever produce a work of such beauty.

This makes any attempt to render the Qur'an into another language a daunting task, and explains why Muslims prefer to call non-Arabic versions of the Qur'an "interpretations." The difficulties are compounded further by the interpretive problems inherent in all translations, that is, the word-by-word demand for decisions about the intended meaning of the original and the most suitable equivalent in the target language. These issues the Qur'an itself seems to anticipate: "Some of its verses are definite in meaning—these are the cornerstone of the scripture—and others are ambiguous. The perverse at heart eagerly pursue the ambiguities in their attempt to make trouble and to pin down a specific meaning of their own: only God knows the true meaning." (Surah 3, Verse 7, Abdel Haleem version)

Most modern-day "translators" of the Qur'an explicitly engage these issues and explain their particular approach and decisions. While there will never be a definitive Qur'an in any language other than Arabic, these days English readers are able to choose from among a wide selection of careful "interpretations."

It is thus not so surprising that Sale turned from translating the holy text of Christians into Arabic to rendering the holy text of Muslims into his native English. Noting the absence of a reliable English translation, he aimed to provide a "more genuine idea of the original." Lest his readers be unduly daunted, he justified his choice of fidelity to the original by stating that "we must not expect to read a version of so extraordinary a book with the same ease and pleasure as a modern composition." Indeed, even though Sale's English may appear overwrought today, there is no denying that he strove to convey some of the beauty and poetry of the original Arabic.

An inscription inside the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. quotes Jefferson's 1777 statute on religious pluralism that inspired the constitutional right that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust."

Sale's aspiration to provide an accurate rendition of the Qur'an was matched by his desire also to provide his readers with a more honest introduction to Islam. This "Preliminary Discourse," as he entitled it, runs to more than 200 pages in the edition Jefferson purchased. Fairly presented and conscientiously documented, it contains a section on Islamic civil law that repeatedly points out parallels to Jewish legal precepts in regard to marriage, divorce, inheritance, lawful retaliation and the rules of warfare. In this substantial discussion, Sale displays the same quality of dispassionate interest in comparative law that later moved Jefferson.

ut did reading the Qur'an influence Thomas Jefferson? That question is difficult to answer, because the few scattered references he made to it in his writings do not reveal his views. Though it may have sparked in him a desire to learn the Arabic language (during the 1770's Jefferson purchased a number of Arabic grammars), it is far more significant that it may have reinforced his commitment to religious freedom. Two examples support this idea.

In 1777, the year after he drafted the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was tasked with excising colonial legacies from Virginia's legal code. As part of this undertaking, he drafted a bill for the establishment of religious freedom, which was enacted in 1786. In his autobiography, Jefferson recounted his strong desire that the bill not only should extend to Christians of all denominations but should also include "within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan [Muslim], the Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination."

This all-encompassing attitude to religious pluralism was by no means universally shared by Jefferson's contemporaries. As the historian Robert Allison documents, many American writers and statesmen in the late 18th century made reference to Islam for less salutary aims. Armed with tendentious translations and often grossly distorted accounts, they portrayed Islam as embodying the very dangers of tyranny and despotism that the young republic had just overcome. Allison argues that many American politicians who used "the Muslim world as a reference point for their own society were not concerned with historical truth or with an accurate description of Islam, but rather with this description's political convenience."

"The style of the Korân is generally beautiful and fluent, especially where it imitates the prophetic manner, and scripture phrases. It is concise, and often obscure, adorned with bold figures after the eastern taste, enlivened with florid and sententious expressions, and in many places, especially where the majesty and attributes of God are described, sublime and magnificent; of which the reader cannot but observe several instances, though he must not imagine the translation comes up to the original, notwithstanding my endeavours to do it justice." — from "A Preliminary Discourse" by George Sale

These attitudes again came into conflict with Jefferson's vision in 1788, when the states voted to ratify the United States Constitution. One of the matters at issue was the provision—now Article vi, Section 3—that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." Some Anti-Federalists singled out and opposed this ban on religious discrimination by painting a hypothetical scenario in which a Muslim could become president. On the other side of the argument, despite their frequent opposition to Jefferson on other matters, the Federalists praised and drew on Jefferson's vision of religious tolerance in supporting uncircumscribed rights both to faith and to elected office for all citizens. As the historian Denise Spellberg shows in her examination of this dispute among delegates in North Carolina, in the course of these constitutional debates "Muslims became symbolically embroiled in the definition of what it meant to be American citizens."

It is intriguing to think that Jefferson's study of the Qur'an may have inoculated him—to a degree that today we can only surmise— ainst such popular prejudices about Islam, and it may have informed his conviction that Muslims, no less and no more than any other religious group, were entitled to all the legal rights his new nation could offer. And although Jefferson was an early and vocal proponent of going to war against the Barbary states over their attacks on us shipping, he never framed his arguments for doing so in religious terms, sticking firmly to a position of political principle. Far from reading the Qur'an to better understand the mindset of his adversaries, it is likely that his earlier knowledge of it confirmed his analysis that the roots of the Barbary conflict were economic, not religious.

Sale's Koran remained the best available English version of the Qur'an for another 150 years. Today, along with the original copy of Jefferson's Qur'an, the Library of Congress holds nearly one million printed items relating to Islam—a vast collection of knowledge for every new generation of lawmakers and citizens, with its roots in the law student's leather-bound volumes. 

	Sebastian R. Prange (s.prange@gmail.com) holds a doctorate in history from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. He studies the organization of Muslim trade networks in the pre-modern Indian Ocean, with a regional focus on South India.
	Aasil Ahmad (www.aasilahmad.net) is a freelance photographer and photo editor for Islamic Monthly magazine. He recently completed a project in Kashmir teaching photography to children impacted by the 2005 earthquake. His photos of the Hajj were featured in a series called "A Minox in Mecca" at the Contact Photography Festival in Toronto. He lives in Washington, D.C.

This article appeared on pages 2-7 of the July/August 2011 print edition of Saudi Aramco World.

Check the Public Affairs Digital Image Archive for July/August 2011 images.

Islam Made Me A Better Citizen

This July 4th Offers An Opportunity To Renew Our Commitment To The Patriotic Nature Of Political Dissent

By: Corey Saylor
July 3, 2011
Courtesy Of "IslamiCity"

Islam made me a better citizen and patriot. The Prophet Muhammad's teachings strengthened my belief in freedom and democracy. Independence Day once meant nothing more to me than an excuse to party. Prior to my acceptance of Islam, my personal behavior demonstrated all too well why July 4th ranks as the holiday most associated with alcohol-related deaths. When I first read the Quran, Islam's revealed text, and the traditions (hadith) of the Prophet Muhammad I expected to find something totally alien to American ideals. Instead, I found many of the same democratic principles that emerged from the Continental Congress in that summer of 1776. Democracy - The Quran promises rewards for those "who (conduct) their affairs by mutual consultation." (Quran, 42:38) Political Activism - The Prophet Muhammad said, "The best jihad in the path of God is (to speak) a word of justice to an oppressive ruler." (Sunan of Abu-Dawood) Justice - "O believers! Stand firm for justice and bear true witness for the sake of God, even though it be against yourselves, your parents or your relatives. It does not matter whether the party is rich or poor - God is well wisher of both. So let not your selfish desires swerve you from justice. 

If you distort your testimony or decline to give it, then you should remember that God is fully aware of your actions." (Quran, 4:135) The Burden of Political Authority - The Prophet Muhammad said, "He who has been ruler over (even) ten people will be brought shackled on the Day of Resurrection until justice loosens his chains or tyranny brings him to destruction." (Sahih Muslim) Islam's lifestyle of self-restraint, abstinence from drugs and alcohol, respect for the institution of marriage, concern for neighbors regardless of their faith, duty to parents, and respect for the rule of law resulted in my becoming a better person and a better American. Thomas Jefferson once said, "Dissent is the greatest form of patriotism." On July 4th, we celebrate one of history's great acts of dissent: the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The men who put their signature on that document literally put their lives and property on the line to voice their disagreement with British government policies that they believed to be tyrannical. This July 4th offers an opportunity to renew our commitment to the patriotic nature of political dissent. I and many other Americans are deeply disturbed by events in Iraq, by reports of torture and desecration of the Quran in Guantanamo Bay, by Patriot Act abuses, by the rising tide of anti-Muslim rhetoric in our society, and by domestic and international policies that seem to create more problems than they solve. 

But my love for America is not diminished because it is sometimes flawed. I love my nation because, despite its flaws, the majority of its people remain committed to tolerance and respect for one another, whatever their faith or viewpoint. After the 9/11 attacks, my neighbors could have turned their anger on me as a Muslim. They did not. They came to me and offered both support and their horror that someone would twist my faith in such an evil manner. But of greatest inspiration to me are the words written in 1998 by a Muslim 10th grader living in California. Following the attack on the USS Cole, he wrote a letter to Osama bin Laden. In that letter he wrote: "If you are keen to murder Americans, kill us before you kill non-Muslim Americans. Bomb our mosques and Islamic Centers. We are Americans as much as others." This July 4th, let us all remember that we love this nation and will heed Jefferson's advice by offering a word of justice to any of our representatives who stray from the ideals set forth in that revolutionary document signed 231 years ago in Philadelphia. 

Corey Saylor is government affairs director for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).