Dr. Sherman Abdal Hakim Jackson - Sharia Law: Theocracy or Democracy?

their very existence is a cause of war. End of quote. Now, she goes on to point out that the abode of Islam, abode of peace dichotomy, double Islam, double haram dichotomy, is a religious prescription for Muslims. That is to say that Muslims prescriptively divide the world into an abode of Islam and an abode of war.

Muslims can live in an abode of Islam, but the only action that is legitimate for Muslims to assume vis- a-vis an abode of war is one of hostility. Now, what I want to do, and by the way, the implication of this, of course, is that Muslims who come to live in a non-Muslim polity can only adjust to their reality by relaxing their commitment to true Islam. And this is one of the ideas that, then some pretense to the idea that when Muslims speak about peace, about tolerance, about pluralism, about coexistence, this is really nothing more than a tactical maneuver.

It's designed sort of by time and to the point that society sort of falls asleep and wakes up one morning to find themselves in front of this grand Muslim power that is then going to show its real face. Now, by the way, these are very serious people who are writing this. This is not popular literature, as it were.

Historical Analysis of Islamic Legal Tradition

This comes from the highest echelons of the academy. Now what I want to do is call attention to the fact that there are many aspects of the Islamic religious tradition that are the result of history and non-religion. And this becomes a very difficult theme for many of us to get our minds around.

And at times I wonder, you know, how much of this is indebted to the sort of Enlightenment or post- Enlightenment attitude that we had towards religion in the context of which Islam becomes sort of the quintessential pre-Enlightenment religion, the religion in which people sort of still believe in that stuff, still really believe literally in the dictates of revelation. And for that reason, religion is the explanation virtually of everything that they do. All right? I don't know how... I've heard this from credible sources.

Someone told me that right after 7-7 happened in... 7-7? I'm trying to be hidden. Okay. 7-7, the bombing in London, Prime Minister Tony Blair said to someone, go out and get me a copy of the Quran.

Of course, this is supposed to explain why 7-7 happened. And what I'm suggesting here is that part of this may be indebted to the idea that for sort of pre-Enlightenment religion, religion is the answer for everything. So if you want to know why Muslims are doing what they do, or why they believe what they believe, you need consult nothing more than their scriptures.

Well, this idea I want to challenge, and I want to challenge a fundamental. And I want to do so through a reading of one of the most authoritative jurists, Muslim jurist, from the classical Muslim tradition. This is a man by the name of Al-Mawardi.

Al-Mawardi's Historical Analysis

Al-Mawardi. Al-Mawardi was a jurist of the Shari'a school of law, and he wrote a big 14-volume opus on Islamic law. He was a major authority in the field, and his books are still held in esteem and revered with authority today.

In this book, Al-Mawardi is clear that the designation of both of Islam, of both of peace, is not a religious prescription, but rather a historical description. That is to say, it is not a prescription for how Muslims should look at the world. It is a description of how Muslims found the world to be.

That is to say, that Muslims basically look out at the world and discover that the only places where they can live as communities in peace are places of which they have political authority. When they find themselves as minorities in non-Muslim lands, they find it very difficult. And by the way, this is a pre-Mohammed world now.

They find it very difficult to survive as communities. Now, that is where the distinction of both of Islam, of both of peace, comes from. And the proof of this is that Al-Mawardi is explicit in stating that any time a Muslim finds himself in a country where he or she is able to preserve their religion and practice the basic rudiments of their religion, even if they are not able to spread their religion, by persuasion or by the sword, the mere fact that they are able to practice the rudiments of their religion renders that country an abode of Islam.

Renders that country an abode of Islam. And Al-Mawardi goes on to say, basically, that if a Muslim should find himself in such a situation, in a non-Muslim polity, where they are able to practice the fundamental tenets of their religion, then that Muslim should not migrate from that country. And Al- Mawardi gives the implication that the reason for this is that if he's able or she's able to practice their religion, by leaving that country, that country would be less likely then to be guided to Islam.

Application to the American Context

Now, we don't need to over-indulge some of the sort of medieval connotations of Al-Mawardi's thought here, but the real point for us to recognize is that clearly, the whole notion of an abode of Islam, an abode of peace, is based on historical reality, not on religious prescription. And therefore, if Muslims should find themselves, in a general sense, in a position or in a historical circumstance or context, where in which it is possible for them to practice their religion, then certainly, if we apply Al- Mawardi's logic, that would render the place where they live an abode of Islam. Now, Muslims here in America have constitutional guarantees, freedom of religion, and, yeah, yeah, right.

While we may differ on our understandings or interpretation of how that is often concretized, certainly the idea of overt religious persecution is not one that sits well in the context of the American constitutional order. And here again, we run into a problem that is oftentimes confronted when thinking about Islam. When we think about Muslim communities in non-Muslim politics, the tendency is to assume the historical reality of pre-modernism, in which religious persecution would probably be the norm, rather than think about modern reality, a modern reality such as that of the United States, when that is not the case.

And part of what I'm trying to get us to do is to ground our understandings and our thoughts about Islam in the concrete reality of the United States. Now, in sum, there are many in the academy who would locate Islam in a particular time and place and a particular mindset, and then imply from there that this mindset binds all Muslims to that particular understanding. And on that particular understanding, Muslims who live in modern politics like America can only do so if they're not really, really, really committed to Islam.

The Concept of Hakimiyyah

But now, I want to go on and be fair here, because this is not simply a tendency that we find in non- Muslims. Muslims are also known to carry these kinds of ideas. And one of the major ideas in this regard that I think does a lot to impede Muslim ability to come to terms with their reality in the modern West is this idea of an haqqimiyah, an idea called haqqimiyah.

I'm going to explain that in just a second. This is a very, very well-known idea in sort of Muslim activist circles. It was popularized by the Egyptian ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, and a little before him, the Pakistani, Abu al-A'la al-Mahmoud.

Now, basically, the idea of al-haqqimiyah says the following, that part of what the Muslim testimony of faith entails is that God and God alone is the repository of all fundamental rights and obligations. In that context, anyone who recognizes man-made rights and obligations basically challenges God's rightful monopoly over the hanging down of law. In other words, to the extent that Muslims recognize man-made law and man-made policies, they are guilty of violating Islamic monotheism by attributing to someone other than God the right to make laws, to confer rights, and impose obligations.

Now, Qutb and Maududi and those who subscribe to this notion are in a sense aided by the fact that there was an extent, I mean the whole idea of God being the repository of ultimate value, that is central to the religions of Islam. And there's no justifiable cause for attacking Qutb or Maududi on that score. But to move from there to the idea that any man-made law, to recognize any man-made law is to be guilty of violating Islamic monotheism, that is a stretch.

Classical Islamic Law and Discretionary Powers

And I want to establish that by the following. In classical Islamic law, classical jurists always recognized a certain amount of legal discretion that was recognized to the ruler. The ruler can make laws that govern all kinds of things, from licensing medical doctors to requiring meat cutters to certify their meats, to issuing licenses for people who are going to teach in madrassas, etc.

I mean, all of these things were aspects of laws and rules that Muslim rulers could hand down. And this was universally recognized as being a part of the ruler's discretion. Now, while these were man- made laws, the only criterion that they had to fit was that they not in any way fundamentally violate the law of Islam.

Outside of that, however, they were recognized not only as being legitimate, but perfectly necessary, because Islamic law is not a law that has every single solitary detail of what we need to regulate life. In other words, you're not going to find speed limits in the Qur'an. They're not there.

And of course, the ruler would have to come forth and implement some kind of rule that would regulate that reality. This was a part of classical Islam, man-made to be sure. But in no way a violation of God's rightful monopoly over law.

In fact, there were jurists who actually championed the idea that what we need is to promote greater, greater discretionary powers to the ruler. Not in order to undermine the law, but actually to add to the efficacy of the law. And here we're talking about not so-called sort of liberal thinkers.

We're talking about jurists who are at the heart of the very Islamic legal tradition. In fact, some people whom we habitually think of today as being puritanical. Ibn Taymiyyah, for example, and his student, Ibn al-Qayyim al-Tawziyyah, championed the idea of giving discretionary powers to the ruler in order to add to the efficacy of Islamic law.

Examples of Discretionary Justice

And in order to be able to realize justice in instances where the actual dictates of the manuals of Islamic law seem to fall short. So to give you an example of what I'm talking about, Ibn al-Qayyim al- Tawziyyah says that, this is rather disturbing, so just hold on to your seats, but it's his example, not mine. If a man mutilates his wife's genitals, we're not talking about circumcision here, but if a man mutilates his wife's genitals, then it becomes illegal for him to divorce her. And if he should divorce her, either because he wants to or because she wants to, then he remains financially responsible for her up until her death. Now this was clearly a violation of the letter of the law that you would find in any manual of Islamic law. Ibn al-Qayyim al-Tawziyyah, however, insisted that the ruler be given this kind of discretionary power in order to be able to affect justice in those instances whereby a literal application of the law would lead to injustice.

In fact, he and his teacher, Ibn al-Qayyim al-Tawziyyah, are explicit in stating that any place we find justice, that is to be considered an application of Islamic law. Now my point here is not to argue for the substance of these deductions on the part of these jurists. It's simply to question, however, the whole idea that any time that Muslims recognize a man-made law or a man-made injunction, they are somehow guilty of engaging in acts of shirk or violations of Muslim monotheism.

Post-Colonial Context and Modern Misunderstandings

Now there are all kinds of other examples of this that we could point to. Muslims, and this is another problem that we find in words such as those of, say, Qutb and others, is the following. There's a fundamental difference because what we have to consider here is the time period in which we happen to exist.

And we happen to be on the sort of tail end of a development in the Muslim world that sees a lot of Islamic thought come out of the post-colonial mode of thinking. That is to say, where Muslims were trying to sort of reposition themselves in such a way that they could reclaim rights and positions that they felt had been lost to them. And part of that was to attack and to criticize the prevailing order.

And what you'll find in all these works is a very virulent attack on Muslim rulers who refuse to apply Islamic law. And that in itself is fair enough. And I mean, just think about how we feel when the government presents not to apply the Constitution.

It's the same sort of sentiment. The problem, however, is that oftentimes these books are read with a sort of a false transferability in them. That is to say that we assume that that which applies or could theoretically be applied to a Muslim polity that does not apply Islamic law applies equally to a non- Muslim polity that does not apply Islamic law.

And the same way that Muslims should oppose a Muslim polity that does not apply Islamic law, they should oppose a non-Muslim polity that does not apply Islamic law. This is very problematic. And this was never the opinion or the attitude of pre-modern jurists.

Pre-Modern Recognition of Non-Muslim Polities

Pre-modern jurists recognized non-Muslim polities as legitimate and the laws of non-Muslim polities as legitimate. And to make a very long story short, this is very easily identified in the principle of what is called extraterritoriality. And without getting too technical here, extraterritoriality produced institutions and Islamic law that are standard features in the manuals of Islamic law that granted, for example, merchants from non-Muslim countries who were traveling in Islamic lands, exemptions from Islamic law, all right, and allowed for them to have their cases tried according to the law of their own land.

So if you were a Venetian merchant and you ended up in Cairo and you got into a dispute with a Genoan merchant, right, Islamic law would allow Italian law to adjudicate the dispute between the two of you as opposed to impose Islamic law. All right, I mean, this was the attitude. Clearly they understood that that is their law, that is a legitimate law, and we will simply act as bailiff in this particular incident.

And the point that I'm making here, again, is the idea that a Muslim's attitude toward a Muslim state that flunked or violates God's law is not transferable to a non-Muslim state that does not have Islamic law. In fact, I want to sort of backtrack in a sense and locate what is really at the heart of this sort of exaggerated opposition to everything that can be identified as man-made law. Because in the modern Muslim psyche, man-made law has come to sort of constitute an anathema.

The Modern Muslim Reaction to Man-Made Law

When you hear that, there's a very sort of sharp, visceral reaction because it's understood to be not only a violation of, but a flaunting of God's law. Well, part of the reason for that is this. As I said, in

HEADING

pre-modern times, Muslims were quite comfortable with a modicum of discretionary powers in the hands of a man.

What happened is that when modern Muslim states came into being, the state assumed a monopoly over the law. And with that monopoly over the law, it sort of, from a Muslim perspective, from the perspective of Muslim activists, it abused that legal authority in an effort to supplant Islamic law with laws of foreign origin. It's in that context that man-made gets equated with a disregard for, a contempt for God's law.

In pre-modern times, man-made did not have that connotation. And this is part of what we must be very careful about when we're trying to talk about Islam. Because if we're not careful about the space in which we happen to be, we can equate man-made, for example, with contempt for Islamic law, even in a place like America, where that is, I hope, clearly a Nazi implication.

All right? Now, this raises another very important issue, and there are only a few others that I want to get to, that I think is very important to understand. And that is this. We tend to think of Islamic law as purely a matter of Muslim interpretation of Islamic scripture.

The Nature of Islamic Law and Legitimacy

And therefore, what renders something Islamic is whether or not we can find some prescription or injunction that urges or requires of Muslims that they pursue a certain thing. In other words, if we want to know about the compatibility between Islam and democracy, for example, what we look for is, well, where does the Qur'an require Muslims to establish democracy? And if Muslims are sort of unable to show where the Qur'an dictates democracy, or where a spontaneous reading of the Qur'an would lead to support for democracy, then the attitude is that, you see, Islam doesn't really support democracy. And when Muslims say that, they're just telling you what you want to hear.

All right? Now, what I want to try and convey to you is the following. From its inception, Islamic law has always included a reflex that said that in society, that is, pre-Muslim society, there may be any number of ways of doing things, values and institutions, that are perfectly fine. And what we as Muslim jurists will do is process these on the data of scripture, and anything that we find that is compatible with that, that is to say does not violate that, we will then re-inscribe with Islamicity.

In other words, non-Muslim institutions can become Islamic ones by a simple act of inscribing them with Islamic legitimacy. And so, for example, if you take, the symbol of Muslim society is of course, I mean the visual symbol, is of course of the mosque, where you have your dome and your nice minaret. That does not come from a Qur'an.

It does not come from a practice of a prophet. They didn't have these kinds of things in Mecca or Medina where the prophet was. Muslims only found these in non-Muslim lands, and re-inscribed them with Islamicity.

And they did this time and time again with any number of legal institutions. All right? And so what we're looking at is that Muslims may come to America and they may find things in society that the Qur'an did not put there, that the practice of the prophet did not put there, but which can certainly, certainly be processed in a manner that they can be inscribed with Islamicity.

They can become Islamic, not necessarily in the sense of being completely normative or representative of an idea, but certainly acceptable from the point of view of one who wants to live a life that entails a serious commitment to religion.

The Structure of Classical Islamic Law

And so when we speak about Islamic, Islamic law is not simply the dictates of the Qur'an and the Sunnah. And providence, that is, place or time, has never been a source of Islamic law alone. And so when we talk about Islamic law in America, we should abandon this notion that what that entails is Muslims coming to America and simply superimposing, in other words, American society in and of itself, from the perspective of Islam, has no legitimacy.

And a really truly committed Muslim community will simply want to do what with the American order? Take the whole thing and wipe it? Wipe it out and replace it with an Islamic order. This is never the way Islamic law, never the way Islamic law has operated. And this is, again, Islam in its most authoritative classical expression.

And let me just give you one idea quickly that sort of underscores this fact. If you go to the tables of contents in any manual of Islamic law, classical Islamic law, you'll find all kinds of chapters. All right? Chapters on shurikeen, chapters on debt forgiveness, chapters on torts, liability, et cetera, et cetera.

You'll find all of these chapters. The fact of the matter is that these chapters are not reflective of either the dictates of the Quran or of the Sunnah. What they are reflective of is reality that was found in the lands into which the Muslims came.

All right? That produced dispute situations that the Muslims then institutionalized and they became Islamic law. So many of these institutions come from non-Muslim lands and non-Muslim backgrounds. Some of them are accepted in total.

Some of them only after a certain amount of modification or adjustment. All right? But this is the way typically that Islamic law grew. Not only that, this was at a time when Islam was a numerical minority in these lands.

Historical Context of Islamic Legal Development

In his book, Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period, Professor Dick Bullock, Richard Bullock from Columbia University, makes the point that the central lands of Islam did not become majority Muslims for centuries after the conquests. All right? For centuries, Muslims were a political majority, that is to say, they held power, but a numerical minority. Societies of which they assumed rule were majority non-Muslim.

All right? Now, think about the fact that all of the founders of the schools of Islamic law died during a period when Islam was a minority. They all died in the third century of Islam, which according to Professor Bullock was before Muslim society became predominantly Muslim. And so what we're seeing here is an ability on the part of Islam to interact with non-Muslim society in a manner that recognizes that there may be any number of aspects of that social order, political order, economic order, that are perfectly legitimate from the perspective of Islam, and that can be adopted and inscribed with a legitimacy in Islam.

The Question of Loyalty

Now, let me move on to, very quickly, the issue of loyalty. And here, I've already alluded to the fact that we should not assume that whether or not Muslims are loyal to a polity like America is based solely on religion. And I think this is something that we need to pay special attention to, because what it does, in a sense, is that it puts all of the onus on the Muslim community and assumes an ideal order.

That is to say, it assumes that the American state is conducting itself in an ideal fashion, or that the American social order is an ideal social order. I want to give you a hypothetical that hopefully will aid us in how we think about this. Think about the following.

It's 10 p.m. No, no, no, don't say that. Almost feels like that, right? I won't be long. It's 10 p.m. You are a black American male, mid-30s.

You are driving on that road of anywhere USA. Your car breaks down. You do not have a cell phone.

Therefore, you don't have to get out of your car and knock on somebody's door to get help. You get out of your car. You come upon a patch of houses.

Half these houses have American flags hanging outside. The other half does not. Which of these houses do you not know? Now, the point that I'm being made here is, and whenever I ask this question to predominantly black American audiences, or even audiences of color, as it were, overwhelmingly, the one without the flag.

All right? And the point that I'm making is that why is this not taken into consideration in terms of gauging whatever levels of alienation that Muslims may have from the hospitality? In other words, why is religion the only ingredient that's ever pointed to as an explanation for why Muslims may feel a degree of alienation? All right? This is a point that really calls out for some consideration. Now, two more points, and then I'll start open for questions. The other point is this, and this, I think, has a lot to do with a certain culture.

Weak State vs. Strong State Traditions

And this is more so the case among immigrant Muslims, but there is an extent to which, sort of by osmosis or enculturation, even a number of indigenous Muslims have adopted this. And this is this.

Classical or pre-modern Islamic law emerges out of what political theorists refer to as a weak state tradition.

By weak state, I'm not talking about military power. All right? But I'm talking about states in which the state itself is not the focal point of people's primary identity. In other words, pre-modern states are sort of like youths.

Over here, you have sort of the primary sense of loyalty to family, tribe, et cetera. On the other hand, you have primary public loyalties to religion, sex, even maybe school of law. The state here is actually in the valley, and that's the lowest level of loyalty and sense of identity that people feel towards the outside, i.e. toward the state.

Modern states are the opposite. They're the opposite. All right? You have family here, family religion, and religion, maybe ethnic group or race here.

And then the maximum sort of sense of identity goes to the state. That's sort of what makes us all Americans. All right? Now, the point that I'm trying to make here is that in coming out of a weak state tradition, Muslims are still in a transitionary stage where a weak state culture informs their sensibilities about the degree of loyalty to give to any state, not simply the American state, but to any state.

All right? And I know that there are some here who say, well, wait a minute. That certainly can apply to the Muslim world, where Muslims seem to be very loyal to their states. Well, two things here.

I would say, don't believe everything you see first. And then secondly, Muslims identify with Muslim states primarily as impositories of cultural and ethnic identity. That is to say that to be an Egyptian or to be an Indian, for example, is a cultural historical identity that precedes the state and transcends the state.

All right? The state is held to be a sort of repository of that identity. And it's on that basis that they identify with the state. If that state goes away, they still identify as Egyptians, as Indians, et cetera.

It is part of their ethnic identity. And it's on that basis that they identify with the state. This is part of what you might want to call a certain gap that's going to take a matter of time before Muslims can sort of emerge out of this weak state sort of mentality into a more strong state one.

Questions About Religious Commitment and State Loyalty

But here I have just two little questions. First, one of the issues, and by the way, not only religious Muslims, but religious Christians in America have raised this point. Professor Stephen Carter, for example, makes the point that one of the issues that religion faces in America is that our thinking in America tends to begin with the state and the interest of the state and then to figure out sort of how religion can be brought into conformity with the interest of the state.

All right? Now, if that's the case, I think it's fair to ask the question, why religiously committed Muslims, or Christians for that matter, or Jews for that matter, should not reserve their deepest

religious commitments for something other than the state, given that the state is never going to prioritize a religion as a repository of values that inform and that provide a basis for life. The second issue that I want to raise is this. Let's suppose that Muslims emerge out of this weak state mentality and they arrive at a strong state political culture.

That is to say that they identify with the state and they go look to the state to provide it with and to oversee a social political order that is in conformity with their vision of the good. What would happen if Muslims in America, for example, were to say, you know what, American state, we want to push for full prosecution for adultery and fornication. Would that be looked upon as simply being purely a matter of Muslims pursuing legitimate interests? And by the way, if you look at this from the perspective of the black American community right now, for example, that's a community where upwards of 65% of children are born out of wedlock.

All right? Would that be recognized as a legitimate aim? Or would this sort of be looked at as some sort of stealthy fifth column attempt to sort of impose the dreaded Sharia on society? And so the point that I'm making here is that if Muslims are to come into a full identification with the American state, then there's some give and take that has to be made on both sides. All right?

Conclusion

Let me end by saying the following. I think that we are in a point in our history where we are in desperate need of open, intelligent, honest, and courageous discussions, debates, and exchanges about the possibilities of America and the possibilities of Islam in America.

It's my hope that we will not suffer from what the French intellectual Guy Lebourd refers to as the tyranny of the spectacle. The tyranny of the spectacle. And what he's referring to is the fact that we end up in a society in which the images that are produced about a particular group undermine our ability to actually encounter that group.

In other words, I am talking to you face to face. I'm touching you. I'm exchanging with you. But rather than hear me, the image that is produced about me comes between you and me so that you can hear me and you can trust me. And therefore, we cannot get beyond where we are right now. Of course, this is going to take a lot of courage and a lot of digging deep.

And I'm not making a political slogan here, but let me just end by saying, yes, we can.

Dr. Abdal Hakim Jackson - Covering Islam and Muslims in America

Opening Remarks

Well, I think that I want to thank those who invited me here to give this talk tonight. And I had the pleasure of sitting in at some of the earlier sessions today. And seeing that you guys have been

Islam and Authority

state takes over the definition of the law. This has the effect of marginalizing the traditional doctors of the law in terms of their legal authority, their authority to define what the law is.

At the same time, there is the vacuum that is in a sense developed out of this situation is filled by the fact that modernity also witnesses the rise of massive literacy on the part of the population. So on the one hand, you get the traditional doctors of the law with their highly formalized training marginalized. On the other hand, you get mass literacy and mass access to books.

And so all of a sudden, we have a very different reading literate public before books about Islam, about Islamic doctrine, about Islamic law, about Islamic theology, and all of these things. And this has a massive impact on the sort of manner by which doctrine is produced in the modern world. In a sense, this vacuum of authority results in something of an interpretive free-for-all.

And that results in a global authority crisis in modern Islam. And this raises the question, who speaks for Islam?

A Real-Life Example from Egypt

Now, one of the biggest mistakes that one can make, I think, in looking at Islam in the modern world, is of course to assume that the realities of the modern Muslim world are simply an uninterrupted continuation of the classical period. That is a major mistake with catastrophic implications in terms of our ability to understand what is going on.

In this regard, I'd like to relate to you a real-life incident that I experienced a few years ago in Egypt. I was in Cairo. I was about to leave the country.

And I wanted to pick up a copy of a very famous modern explanation of the Qur'an by a very controversial figure, the firebrand, Sayyid Qutb, who was at one time the chief ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood. Now, this work is six volumes, big tomes. And it's a very important work in certain ways.

But, I mean, I wanted it basically as a reference. I go into the store and I say, I'd like to have a copy of Sayyid Qutb. And he says, OK, 125 pounds.

That's not a whole lot of money, but when in Cairo, you act like the Kyrenes. And so, I plunge into my spiel, you know, Why did I leave? You know. And the guy sort of starts getting just a little bit impatient.

He says, OK, look. Look, look here. If you want, I can go on the back and I can get you a copy of another explanation of the Qur'an by a classical exegete, the very famous Ibn Kathir.

It's a very famous tafsir. And he said, not the abridged version, the full version. I can give it to you for 75 pounds.

But if you don't take this particular edition of Sayyid Qutb off the shelf, now, today, if you come back tomorrow, I'll have to order it for you. It won't be there. I said to him, Wait a minute.

Ibn Kathir? Sayyid Qutb? Why? He said the following to me. He said, the people won't buy Ibn Kathir because they are afraid of him. They can't read him.

He makes them feel stupid. He has all this classical poetry in there. All these grammatical explanations.

They don't have access to this. Sayyid Qutb, on the other hand, he writes in very accessible, modern Arabic and relates everything in his explanation to modern events in the Muslim world. By virtue, therefore, of access alone, Sayyid Qutb, who was not a trained exegete or a jurist, has the potential of displacing a highly authoritative classical exegete from the classical period.

Sayyid Qutb's radical and in some ways, I don't want to make him the issue, in some ways belligerent, almost, interpretations of Islam, of the Qur'an, many of which would be either modified or undermined by the tafsir or the explanation of Ibn Kathir. Alright? I've given a much broader hearing simply because people have access to him. Not necessarily because they prefer his views, although they may.

They simply can't read Ibn Kathir. That is a part of what is going on in the Muslim world. So much so, that a colleague of mine, Professor Dick Bullitt at the Columbia University refers to the authority crisis in modern Islam as being one in which authority now is often confused with and replaced by authorship.

In other words, if you want to be an authority, all you have to do is write. And your authority is not, no longer based on the level of training or authentication that you might have from a seminary or anything like that. It's based simply on the fact that you are able to write.

And so authority now is often confused with authorship. Now, this is the general picture that characterizes much and I think the most important aspects of what is going on in the Muslim world. Let's move for the moment, and I'm trying to rush through this because I realize I have, yes, limited time.

Islam in America - The Authority Crisis Intensified

Let's move then to America. What does this tell us about Islam in America? Now, the authority crisis in American Islam is exacerbated, to put it lightly. We have on the one hand, and going back to my initial statement about Muslims in America being an amalgamation of different races, ethnicities, classes, histories.

There is a competition for ownership in Islam in America. Who will own Islam? Who will be looked upon as having the authority to define and speak for Islam? The immigrant community has sort of led in the charge to pretensions of ownership. Now, to be fair, this is prima facie a quite reasonable sort of assumption.

After all, if these people from the Muslim world are not Muslims, then who is? Alright? Having said that much, in many instances, and more of them would often meet the eye, the true basis of the immigrant pretension to authority or ownership is not religious knowledge per se, but rather their rootedness in a history that is presumed to be Islamic because it is presumed and often presented as being an uninterrupted continuation of the history that emerges out of the era of sacred history. And so what we're really looking at in some instances, are competing histories whose history is both most authentic and therefore has the greatest claim of being the history in contemplation of which normative understandings of the Qur'an and Sunnah should emerge. Do we get those normative understandings by trying to apply the Qur'an and the Sunnah to American reality? Or do we get normative understandings by trying to apply the Qur'an and the Sunnah to Middle Eastern? And let me be more precise, Arab realities.

The Competition for Islamic Authority in America

This is a part of the competition that's going on in American Islam. And let me be clear here, very clear, this is not simply the contention of black American Muslims. White American Muslims feel the same way in many regards.

Second and third generation immigrant Muslims feel the same way in many regards. There is a feeling that American history and social reality is discounted as the proper object of Muslim religious contemplation. And that if you really want to be authentic in your thinking, you contemplate the realities of the Muslim world, you come to solutions in that context and then analogically, you see, you apply that to life in the States.

But you do not interpret or attempt to apply Islam directly to life in the United States. And this is all again connected to the authority crisis. Now, the presumption that the history of the modern world is a faithful reflection of the legacy of Islam produces the following.

The Muslim world, number one, is where real Islam exists. And when I say Muslim world, again, more properly speaking, I should say the Arab Muslim world. Two, the Muslim world has the exclusive capacity to authenticate those who have pretensions to Islam.

This is an extremely important issue here. This is what is behind what I call in other contexts the John Walker Lynd syndrome. If one thinks about why John Walker Lynd would leave America and go to the Muslim world to begin with, the answer is that so that he could get validation, so that he could be authenticated.

The other side of that is that Islam in America struggles and continues to struggle with the fact that American Islam is not yet self-authenticating. Alright? It still derives a good measure of its authenticity from the Muslim world. Alright? And then lastly, it is only in contemplation, therefore, of scripture in light of the realities of the modern Muslim world, as I mentioned earlier, that normative understandings of Islam can emerge.

Alright? And this has the effect of sort of putting Muslims in America in a position where this is sort of a scrimmage game here in America. The real league is in still the Muslim world. Now, there are a number of Muslims in America who are pushing back against this.

Pushback Against Muslim World Hegemony

The black American community is pushing back against this and arguing that, for example, just one example, if the issue of Palestine and the occupied territories can claim the status of being a bona fide Islamic issue, why cannot then racial discrimination, white supremacy, problems of the urban ghetto, alright, make an equal claim to being a bona fide Islamic issue that deserves the attention and the intellectual energy of the Muslim community? Alright? And I'll follow up on Josh's shameless plug. This is essentially... You should know that academics don't make any money off these books, but I think this is an extremely important discourse about this very problem. Because this book is about trying to get Muslims in America, as well as non-Muslims in America, to take seriously the prospect of Islam in America as being part of the ongoing saga of the American project.

That Islam is, you know, people don't realize this, but if you just take the African American community as a whole, the proto-Islamic movements of the 20th century got started at the beginning of the 20th century. There's almost 100 years that's passed on Islam in the black American community as an American phenomenon. I'm not talking about, you know, Islam coming over on slave ships.

No, Islam has begun in America. Almost 100 years has passed on that very enterprise. And so, Islam as part of the American project.

White Americans are also pushing back. Alright? They come from a history. And by the way, we tend to over-politicize our thinking about Islam.

Muslims are not always just concerned about political issues. I mean, simple issues like the celebration of holidays. You know, someone converts to Islam, they come from a Christian background or whatever.

Can we celebrate Thanksgiving? Can men wear wedding bands? Can people celebrate birthdays? Alright? And again, the tension is, okay, do we answer this question on the basis of an analogous examination of what goes on in the Muslim world and say, well, whatever they celebrate, we can celebrate. Or, is the discussion one of let's look at what the Quran and the Sunnah and sacred history says and process these issues on the basis of that. That is really what's going on in this capacity.

I'm gonna hurry up because we make each other nervous. Alright, alright. The third group.

There are growing numbers of immigrant Muslims who are also pushing back. And I don't want to give the impression that, you know, attachment to the pretensions of Islam being located solely in the Muslim world is exclusively an immigrant thing. There are many white Americans and black Americans who also subscribe to that notion.

Or, that all immigrants subscribe to that picture. They do not. We've already mentioned the progressives, put in quotations.

There are also intelligent, committed, immigrant Muslims. And I think that we saw an example of this this morning in Aslam Abdullah who actually evolved into some of the positions that you hear articulated today. And that has been a process that has unfolded over years of having lived in America and having therefore been in a position to develop a more critical position vis-à-vis the realities of the Muslim world.

Also, second and third generation immigrant kids are pushing back against the sort of hegemonic pretensions of the Muslim world. And then finally, women in all of these groups are pushing back. Now, all of this has been accelerated and informed by the events of 9-11.

The Determining Factor for American Islam

And while all of these groups in their attempts to sort of push back, as it were, may achieve this or that success on this or that issue, the real determining factor in terms of what kind of Islam emerges in America is, in my opinion, very intimately connected with these groups' success at vindicating their perspective and their perspective as Muslims who live in America through a conversation with that sacred history that I talked about earlier. That is going to determine in terms of the long-term implications of Islam in America, what kind of Islam emerges. Now, if I could take just two minutes, I'll say just a couple of words about this whole media thing because I think it's both fair and important for us to understand a few things in this regard.

Muslims and Media Representation

Muslims, as I guess you might imagine, have a certain amount of difficulty with the media and media representations of Islam. A lot of this is connected to the all-too-human preference for being represented by one's ideals as opposed to one's realities. I don't think that Muslims are the only ones who have this perspective.

But I think that there are real ways in which Muslims feel that both their ideals and their realities are often distorted. And sometimes through what appears to be an almost willful ignorance. And just let me give two examples.

One of ideals being distorted and the other of realities being distorted. And now I'll try and wrap up. Muslims feel that their ideals are often distorted because their ideals are routinely, routinely, if not exclusively, put into conversation not with the teachings of other religions, but with secular, enlightenment, ideology, and all its attitudes and biases towards religion.

And in this context, Muslims feel that they are rarely in a position of simply being able to explain or articulate what Islam is. Instead, they are placed in a sort of hegemonic discourse that always seems to put them in a position of having to apologize. And of course, when you apologize, you know,

you're always in a position of having your views distorted because there's a certain thrust to apologies that communicates a certain kind of meaning.

So when I ask you, well, have you stopped beating your wife yet? I mean, how are you going to... And so Muslims really feel that they are more often than not put in a position of having to apologize rather than being simply able to explain. And by the way, in terms of sources, this leads to the problem of you guys coming in contact with misinformation and some instances willful outright untruths. All right? Under pressure to apologize and to make Islam seem or the ideals of Islam appear more seemingly in the context of a universe of meanings that is secular and enlightenment informed.

All right? Maybe there's a question and answer period, but I'll explain why. I mean, this is what led, in a sense, to the fatwa about terrorism and this is precisely why a person such as myself resigned. Because what was happening was that the integrity of the Fifth Council was being undermined.

The Fifth Council was taking a political position. It was talking about what it liked to see, what it didn't like to see. That's not the position of a Fifth Council.

A Fifth Council is supposed to engage solely in principled deductions of the law. Sort of like when you see the Supreme Court at the President's State of the Union Address. And he makes this point and everybody stands up and claps and the Supreme Court says, What? They sit there still.

We don't have an opinion because we need to maintain your confidence that we will engage in our job in an unbiased manner. And if we're already giving a sense of what we think, how can you have confidence that we've interpreted the Constitution in an objective manner? The Fifth Council, all right, by coming out, I didn't have any problem with the substance of the Fatwa per se against terrorism. I've written academic pieces out of the classical tradition on terrorism and Jihad that, you know, ban all of them from the perspective of Islamic law.

All right? But for the Fifth Council to simply say, Okay, look at us, Homeland Security, see, we're really nice guys and we're going to contend terrorism because we know that's what you really want to hear and we're not going to give any arguments. We're not going to give any verses from the Quran. We're not going to give anything from the Sunnah or anything.

Just accept us. That, to me, undermines the integrity of the Fifth Council and forestalls the point at which you can actually develop an institution in American Islam that can command the respect of the Muslim populace. This is a very serious problem from my perspective.

One of the things that I worry about, just one minute and I promise I'll stop. One of the things that I worry about is for those who are seeking to present Islam to the American populace at large. Getting out too far ahead of the rank and file of Muslims.

Of not taking the time to vindicate their points of view. Of getting the Muslims themselves on board when they talk about democracy or women or voting or this or that particular financial instrument.

Alright? Because when that happens what you're going to get is a disconnect between leadership and the populace.

And that's a very real fear of mine. Last point and I promise and will be done. I've said that several times.

Anyway. The issue of realities of the Muslim community being distorted. The realities of the Muslim community Muslims feel are distorted in as much as only for Muslims are their realities taken as being faithful reflections of their ideals.

That is to say that you know Al-Qaeda or whomever gets in a plane and crashes into a building. Alright? That's a reality. No one denies that.

But is it reflective of the ideals of Islam? Here with Muslims people take it to be a reflection of the ideal of Jihad. I teach a class at the University of Michigan comparative religion class. Last time I taught it was about 456 students.

I asked the question if I as a black American Muslim got into my car and crashed into the front office of the local KKK just drove my car right into the office killed everybody inside. How many people would believe that I did that because I'm a Muslim and they are Christian? None of them said they would believe that. I said then how about if I stated that I did it because I'm a Muslim and they are Christian? Still they wouldn't believe it.

What if I quoted you the verses from the Quran that said slay them wherever you find them. Would you believe then that I did it because I'm a Muslim and they are Christian? Still they would not believe it. Yet we have no problem believing that Islam some normative understanding of Islam is what motivated 9-11.

The difference again is that white Americans my fellow Americans know my history. We don't know very much about the history of the Muslim world and therefore we don't know what kinds of considerations might inform their behavior in the same way that we know the kinds of considerations that might inform my own. I'll stop there.

My apologies and thank you very much. I think that's a really important part of this.

Question and Answer Session

Question About Nationalist Islam

Kitty? Would you like to go first? Is it true that Muslims in different countries have sort of a nationalist Islam? Islamic... Do you know what I'm trying to say? Sure.

Well, I mean, yes. I mean, yes and no. And then when it comes here and then when it comes to the United States is that friction that's going on within the Muslim community and then with the Black American community? Yeah, I mean there are all kinds of considerations.

I mean one of the real challenges that Islam poses to Muslim Americans is that, you're right, in many instances Muslims from certain parts of the world have by and large interactions with only Muslims of their sort of ethnicity class and linguistic group. Even their particular persuasion of Islam. So, for example, you know, Indian and Pakistani Muslims are very much into the Hanafi school of law and practices and that's basically all they recognize as being Islam.

And then all of a sudden they come to America, right? And, you know, for example, I mean, Hanafis pray with their hands like this. Alright? The Manipi school prays the right way with their hands down to their sides like that. Now you can imagine what, you know, someone from the subcontinent feels and... So there are those kinds of tensions that are there.

I'm not sure I would call it nationalistic because I think that it depends on the issue with which they're being confronted. You know, in terms of whether some sort of nativistic sentiment or impulse will flare up or not. It's sort of like, you know, blacks in America have lots of infighting but, you know, Trent Lott said something outrageous and then everybody's together, you know.

I mean, the same thing the same thing applies to Muslims from various parts and various countries within the Muslim world. I would say that and I'm going to speak here in as neutral a fashion as I can. I would argue that anyone, any country in the Muslim world that felt that it could exert influence over the development and therefore the sense of I don't want to call it loyalty but affiliation that emerges out of America would jump at the chance to do that.

The Saudis happen to be more particularly, I think, favorably positioned than other countries. Again, they do have the money, they have control of the visas for Hajj, they have the Hajj and they have a religious establishment that is quite large and active. I mean, you're, I think, from Philadelphia.

I mean, that's my hometown and you know there among the Salafi movement, I mean, there is an enormous amount of influence. But there are other parts of the country in which Al-Azhar in Egypt, for example, seeks to influence. One of the things that I think about, and I'm just wondering about this, is the following.

That within the black American community Shiism has had a very, very, very limited success. Very, very, very, very few African Americans are Shiites. And one of the reasons for this is that Shiism has by and large been represented by Persian-speaking Iran.

With the invasion of Iraq and with the toppling of the Sunni regime in Iraq, first of all, you produce a Shiite arc that now runs from Iran all the way to Lebanon. And for the first time, you're going to have an Arabic-speaking, oil-rich, Shiite country. Now, what implications is that going to have for the ability of Shiism to export itself in its Arab guise, alright, as opposed to the Persian guise that the Iranians sort of were shouldered with in terms of trying to export Shiism from Iran.

That has massive implications. You could be looking at a situation where Arabic books are flowing into America and American Muslims can't tell whether the authors are Shiite or Sunni. This has potentially far-reaching implications.

I don't know, but it's a question.

Question About Traditional Texts and Isra'iliyat

Karima? You were talking about the traditional texts and how important they were in terms of forming normative Islam. Can you talk a little bit about the influence of Isra'liyat and how that kind of twisted things, frankly? I think a perfect example for me as a female is the issue of Adam and Eve and the blame of the fall that Eve in the Quran is never blamed specifically.

I mean, it's Adam and Eve or it's Adam, but never Eve. But you get the Isra'liyat and Sunnis. I can see people to this day still quoting these things that go completely in the face of Islam.

Again, I'll give you one of my personal scholarly biases here. I don't know how much it's worth in terms of your enterprise of reporting on Islam, but I happen to think that the emphasis on texts is somewhat exaggerated. What's really going on is that people are appealing to texts in an effort to validate certain histories.

And it's really the history of, let's say, very conservative communities, let's say in Pakistan or India or in Yemen or something like that, that would point to these kinds of sources as a means of validating a social practice that's very common among them. But it's very doubtful that that practice is a spontaneous result of interpreting that particular hadith. If matters were that simple, we'd have a much...I mean people somehow think that all you have to do is come up with the right interpretation and it will change everything.

Well, Muslims drink. Is there any interpretation that says Muslims can drink? And Muslims do all kinds of things for which there is no interpretation. So I think that the Israeliyat are somewhat of a problem in as much as they provide a basis for certain groups to try and authenticate their practices.

But the practices themselves, I think in a minority of cases, they don't actually emanate from those sources. If you get the point that I'm trying to make. There is a justificationism.

My point is that even if that particular source did not exist, the attempt would be through some other source. Israeliyat is a genre of hadith that are... when Islam spread out into other parts of the Middle East, it encountered a number of Jewish converts. And the Jewish converts themselves brought in apocryphal material from their own backgrounds and reformulated them in the guise of hadith and placed them in the mouth of a prophet.

And some of these things seeped into the corpus of hadith. And that's what she's talking about there.

Question About Modern Custodians of Islamic Law

I feel like I'm still trying to get a handle on the... who the custodians and interpreters of the law are today. I mean, I understand there are these doctors of the law, but as a journalist, I'm still trying to figure out who are the wise people. Do they exist today and who do we rely on as journalists, as our

interpreters and custodians? Well, the honest question to that is I don't know. And that is because we are, as I said, in the midst of an authority crisis.

I mean, that question is no more difficult for you, trust me, than it is for the average Muslim. The average Muslim is at a real loss in terms of determining, well, who exactly do I listen to? And this is one of the reasons that by default oftentimes, you know, overseas sources are referred to because still, at least there, the apparatus of formal authority are still in place. So you can write to al-Azhar.

You can write to Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. And these are people with formal qualifications and, you know, they can give the answers. But, you know, a limited number of people, Muslims in America, have access to those bodies.

And so for, you know, large numbers of Muslims, the question of, you know, who do I listen to is a question that often goes unanswered. I mean, there are people who through their writings, through their speeches, lectures, etc., have acquired a modicum of authority. I mean, their words are listened to on the understanding that they are right.

But to go as far as looking at these persons as formal authorities, we're not yet at that point in American Islam. So what do we do? Oh, I mean, depends on what you're looking for. I mean, the problem is this.

I could give you names of people who were trained at al-Azhar. That were trained at al-Azhar and have formal degrees in Islamic law. And who come to the United States and they are formal shuyukh.

Alright? Who give legal opinions that are totally wrong in the context of America. I can give you a concrete example. In classical Islamic law, of course we know that Muslims have an obligation to attend Friday prayer.

Classical Islamic law says, however, if for to no fault of your own, you are unable to go. So for example, if you have been incarcerated, there is no blame on you for not going to Friday communal prayer. Okay? Fine.

We come to America now. Alright? The warden at some prison calls up this Azhar graduate and says, do Muslims who are incarcerated, are they obligated to attend Friday prayer? And he says what? No. And then the warden therefore shuts down Friday prayer in the prison for inmates.

Now this sheikh has no idea of the concept of reasonable accommodation. None. And through his fatwa, alright, Muslim inmates in American prisons may be denied the right to assemble for Friday prayer.

So this person is an authority in some sense but should he always be referred to as the go-to guy? Am I fielding or? Okay.

Question About Enlightenment Context

Yes. I don't know if I misunderstood you but you said something about that there are those who serve

up Islam as being part of the enlightenment tradition? No.

What I said was that the enlightenment tradition provides the context in which many of your questions are asked. And in that context, Muslims feel pressure to apologize rather than simply to explain. Exactly.

It's in that context I guess that the media operates. Right. So is there another context in which Islam should be understood? Is my question, is that possible? Well, I think two things.

I think it is possible. Those of you who are in the media, I'm not going to bore you or try to impress you by quoting this Mattingly article and all these kinds of things. But I think that there are certain things that could be done within the industry itself on the one hand.

On the other hand, however, if the media is going to pursue an understanding of Islam that puts it in conversation with secular ideology, on the one hand, the question has to be asked whether or not that's going to be done with all religious traditions. And Muslims feel that sometimes there's a slight double standard there. And then second, are Muslim explanations then always going to fetch the label of extreme? But I guess I think I understand what you're saying.

It's interesting that it seems that there's a tendency to restore Islam to these norms, these enlightenment norms that reflect Western values always, even in the so-called positive representations of Islam in the press here. Well, let me say this much. Because my perspective on much of this is that in its best tradition the American project is one in which the meaning of being American is that it's best when it's in contention.

And when we start talking about Western values, I happen to believe that black people in America are among the most Western. Alright? But clearly they have outlooks, perspectives, and ideas that are not quite consistent with sort of what you might refer to as wet Western notions. So I think that one of the things that can be done is to complicate a little bit this whole category of Western.

It's not a monolith. I mean, there are many narratives. There are many historical narratives. There are many repositories of mythologies in America, alright, that are equally Western. But when it comes to, I mean, we we become almost hyper-enlightenment when it comes to looking at Islam. But not when it comes to looking at Catholicism.

I mean, we don't look at Catholicism and say, well, when are you going to get a woman up there and giving a mass? But when it comes to Islam, I mean, so I think that the Catholics are, I think, pretty Western. That's the point that I'm making. ... No, I mean, how the Catholics proceed is their business.

I'm not trying to affect the outcome of the discourse. But what I'm talking about is the set of presuppositions that you as a journalist go in with. I mean, what standard are you holding Muslims to? Is it the same standard to which you're holding Catholics? I mean, talk about polygyny and things like that.

We don't talk about Mormons. I mean, I read articles about other religious communities in the newspapers, and I have to ask myself, boy, if this guy were a Muslim, what would they be saying about Islam? I mean, about, I think, a month or six weeks ago, there was an article in the New York Times about a Jewish rabbi who had a ritual in Judaism where the rabbi kisses the genitals of the child. It's part of the... Did anybody see that? And he was passing genital herpes virus.

And there was a story in the New York Times about it. Whoa! What if this guy were a Muslim? What would be said about Islam? So I think that, I mean, you're right. There is this... We are where we are in our history in terms of our relationship to the Enlightenment.

But I don't think that America is as monolithic in terms of the way that it relates to that as the media often assumes when it comes to talking to Muslims. I mean, Americans are religious. Yes.

Counterpoint on Media Treatment of Religion

I would respectfully take issue with that. I think that I mean, not all of what you said, but I think those questions do come up about Catholicism and Protestantism. I think those questions do come up from journalists often about how they fit into the constitutional system that we have, the rationalistic perspective that we have as a nation.

I don't generally ask Catholics or southern Baptists if they if they would commit terrorist acts against America, nor do I ask Muslims. But I would say from Imams to young Muslims, school-age Muslims, I've had many of them volunteer to me, we are not terrorists, and the media consistently paint us with that brush. Well, let me ask you this.

How many Catholics volunteer to you, I'm not gay, and I'm not a pedophile? I'm sorry. I'm not saying that. I don't mean to be offensive, but you understand the point that I'm trying to make.

They have not been in a position where they feel that they have to volunteer that kind of information, but Muslims do. Right, and you made that clear earlier that there is this conciliation that Muslims tend automatically to make at times. But it's not automatic.

I don't think that Muslims are not you know, looking for ways, you know, you don't get so many blessings for the number of times you declare you're not a terrorist. I mean, that's a part of the social political context in which they live. And what Muslims are, I mean, I think what one of the tests, perhaps, of the journalism community would be this.

To what extent do Muslims read your papers to find out about themselves? I would argue, very rarely. And in the majority of cases, Muslims read the papers to find out what they are saying about us and how they are presenting our religion to the rest of society. And I think that there's something mildly wrong with that picture.

Question About Sacred History Period

They've all deferred. So be nice. I wanted to sort of take you back to the historical part of your talk

and ask you in the pre-modern period that you were discussing, how the jurists at that time were able to disseminate what they were deciding and why I guess I want a clearer picture of why those centuries were so important to what we were talking to now.

Why you think they're so important. And also how that came across on the ground to Muslims at that point. Well, if I understand your question fully, part of what you're asking is an anthropological question, which is a whole PhD dissertation about why certain things take hold when they do.

The short and simple answer to your question would be for the same reason that we are not obsessed with, but we take an interest in the period of the founding fathers of America in terms of coming to some kind of understanding of both who we are and who we should be. We are in constant conversation with that period of history in order to determine whether we are moving in directions that are consistent with what we say we are and what we aspire to be or not. And I think that sacred history that I talked about sort of plays the same role in Islamic or in Muslim social psychology as it were.

Is there a historical reason why it's three generations from the time of the prophet that that's the period of sacred history? No, I mean there are all kinds of things that develop that we don't even know why. I mean the development of the schools of law, why they develop, when they develop and where, we don't really know the answer. But this is a period that Muslims look back to as being the golden period of Islam where again, the normative understandings of religion were produced.

That's in law, that's in theology, that's in mysticism to a lesser degree. But that is the period of sacred history in which if I am to determine myself to be a Muslim today, I have to do that to some extent or another in conversation with that history. And I think that progressives, women's groups are finding out the hard way that you can ignore that sacred history and you can put forth a view and it may catch on for a while.

But it's not likely to have much permanency unless it sort of authenticates itself in conversation with that history. That's my opinion. There are some who disagree with me, but they're wrong.

laughter Can I ask you one question? Why hasn't that American history, at least within American history Well, I think that by the way, I mean I resigned from that council. I'm not opposed to fiqh councils. And I believe that we have a very serious need for a fiqh council.

Not in an effort to homogenize, to sort of fordize and make American Islam one, one size fits all. But fatwas are not binding instruments. They're voluntary instruments.

And I believe that for Muslims who want guidance there should be a reliable body of jurisprudential thought that can give them answers. The answers are voluntary anyway. And I believe that we need such a body in America.

And in fact one of the other members who also resigned we were talking about, well we still need a fiqh council. Just that one sort of in our estimation misunderstood its mission. The fiqh council has to

remain above the fray.

It cannot get politicized. It cannot give in to ethnic, racial, class favoritism. It must remain above the fray.

And it must do so in order to be able to command the respect and the assent of the rank and file.

Well when you give fatwas on the tsunami and fatwas on Katrina. Thank you.