I’m a bit out of the loop, but from afar this sounds wonderful.

Could you explain what he is referring to when he says that the MCC’s agenda has become:

“aimed at making Muslim haters feel secure in their thinking”.

Sounds like this is referring to criticism, or “airing out one’s laundry” but I’m assuming that’s not the intended reference. Or is it?

Thanks.

Dear Baraka:

good question. That is a very striking quote. There is such a sense
of unease lately. I think we are all struggling these days, trying to
figure out how to manage our differences in constructive ways.

There is a fine line between constructive intra-communal critique
and the incessant self-flagellation that just seems to affirm the
Isamophobic discourse out there. My hope is that this serves as
a moment for Progressive Muslims to reflect self-consciously upon
how they tend to alienate others, to come across as haughty,arrogant, more likely to critique than try to understand or
learn how others are feeling, what they may be going through. I think
we all have a lot of learn in that regard, what it even means to enter
a dialogue when we are all hurting in so many different ways. I get the sense that this may be a moment of self-reckoning. But then again we don’t know all the details. But I am cautiously hopeful.

Dear Baraka:

good question. That is a very striking quote. There is such a sense
of unease lately. I think we are all struggling these days, trying to
figure out how to manage our differences in constructive ways.

There is a fine line between constructive intra-communal critique
and the incessant self-flagellation that just seems to affirm the
Isamophobic discourse out there. My hope is that this serves as
a moment for Progressive Muslims to reflect self-consciously upon
how they tend to alienate others, to come across as haughty,arrogant, more likely to critique than try to understand or
learn how others are feeling, what they may be going through. I think
we all have a lot of learn in that regard, what it even means to enter
a dialogue when we are all hurting in so many different ways. I get the sense that this may be a moment of self-reckoning. But then again we don’t know all the details. But I am cautiously hopeful.

Dear Baraka:

good question. That is a very striking quote. There is such a sense
of unease lately. I think we are all struggling these days, trying to
figure out how to manage our differences in constructive ways.

There is a fine line between constructive intra-communal critique
and the incessant self-flagellation that just seems to affirm the
Isamophobic discourse out there. My hope is that this serves as
a moment for Progressive Muslims to reflect self-consciously upon
how they tend to alienate others, to come across as haughty,arrogant, more likely to critique than try to understand or
learn how others are feeling, what they may be going through. I think
we all have a lot of learn in that regard, what it even means to enter
a dialogue when we are all hurting in so many different ways. I get the sense that this may be a moment of self-reckoning. But then again we don’t know all the details. But I am cautiously hopeful.

Dear Baraka:

good question. That is a very striking quote. There is such a sense
of unease lately. I think we are all struggling these days, trying to
figure out how to manage our differences in constructive ways.

There is a fine line between constructive intra-communal critique
and the incessant self-flagellation that just seems to affirm the
Isamophobic discourse out there. My hope is that this serves as
a moment for Progressive Muslims to reflect self-consciously upon
how they tend to alienate others, to come across as haughty,arrogant, more likely to critique than try to understand or
learn how others are feeling, what they may be going through. I think
we all have a lot of learn in that regard, what it even means to enter
a dialogue when we are all hurting in so many different ways. I get the sense that this may be a moment of self-reckoning. But then again we don’t know all the details. But I am cautiously hopeful.

I imagine, though I have not heard this from him directly nor has he ever said this to me, that Tarek Fatah's Muslim baiting tirades popular on Neo-Con media sources were not helping the community very much over all. About as much as Irshad Manji helps, I'd say. There are a number of new Irshads these days. They do not read neo-con statements that have been provided to them. Sometimes, like in Fatah's, case they are opposed to the neo-con agenda. But they borrow from, use, highlight, and end up supporting those who would just as soon see us all detained in a camp or carry special identity cards. There is a way to be critical about the very real threat of violent elements in our community and how they are produced without destroying the entire community in the process. My sense is when we begin speaking to non-Muslims, for their sake, we no longer speak for ourselves. I've written about this a bit both on my wiki for resources on the Danish Cartoon Fiasco and in my blog on the Con of Moderate Islam.

Progressive Muslim organizations have become a joke.

My masjid had a khutba, and in the khutba the 30 something year old revert from Oklahoma, a white man who looked like Santa Claus because of his maroon Shukr shirt and white turban with red kufi, warned the congregation about

“Extremism in our community, both within the United States and overseas. We must be aware of extremists, both on the Left (Progressives) and Right (Islamists). Extremists on the Right are not the only ones who are threat to our Ummah, we also have them on the Left.

. . . I remember one time speaking to the president of Progressive Muslim Union, and when I asked the brother, he shall go unnamed what itjima meant, he could not define it nor answer my question.

How can someone talk about reforming Islam when they are ignorant of their faith I ask you?”

My mouth dropped, here was a white Okie at the minbar, whose khutba was addressed to the 30 and under born in America Muslim crowd and parents of the Muslim youth, mentioning from the pulpit the Progressive Muslim organization as being a joke.

“Before one advocates reform, they should look within their hearts, and make sure their iman is in order.”

But let’s be real Laury, we know who this public figure is.

A Pakistani immigrant to Canada, a man by the name of Tarek Fatah, he made the error of being in cahoots with Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer, he alligned himself with a film that is nothing more than an alarmist, Islamophobic bile.

He crossed the line, not even Irshad Manji, another progressive Muslim Desi has been this outrageous.

I was BANNED on JihadWatch, they have a tendency of banning “trolls” who speak up for Islam.

Fatah, I have no respect for him. If I was to see him in person in Toronto, I would spit on him.

Dear Baraka: good question. That is a very striking quote. There is such a sense of unease lately. I think we are all struggling these days, trying to figure out how to manage our differences in constructive ways. There is a fine line between constructive intra-communal critique and the incessant self-flagellation that just seems to affirm the Isamophobic discourse out there. My hope is that this serves as a moment for Progressive Muslims to reflect self-consciously upon how they tend to alienate others, to come across as haughty,arrogant, more likely to critique than try to understand or learn how others are feeling, what they may be going through. I think we all have a lot of learn in that regard, what it even means to enter a dialogue when we are all hurting in so many different ways. I get the sense that this may be a moment of self-reckoning. But then again we don't know all the details. But I am cautiously hopeful.

Tarek Fatah has finally succeeded in disgusting me. You may send him a congratualatory note if you wish, but the article in the Toronto Star regarding the split deserves anything but accolades:

Directors of Muslim group quit en masse

Split occurs in protest of Lebanon war
But group alleges Hezbollah support

By TAMARA CHERRY
The Toronto Star

Eight board members of the Muslim Canadian Congress have resigned their positions, apparently over internal disagreements about a Lebanon war protest at which Hezbollah flags and photos were displayed.

“They resigned after the board passed a non-confidence motion against them,” said Tarek Fatah, the congress’ former communications director who is speaking for the organization until his position is filled.

“We went to the (Aug. 12) demonstration and found that there were Hezbollah flags and pictures of the Iranian president,” Fatah said. “They (the resigned members) are Canadian supporters of Hezbollah … This sort of blind following is not acceptable to us.”

But former congress legal adviser Arif Raza called Fatah’s charges “nonsense,” saying, “There were allegations, but they were simply not true.”

Instead, Raza said, every single member of the executive quit because the congress is increasingly out of step with the opinions of mainstream Muslim-Canadians.

“The message (MCC) was sending out was … to make those who are opposed to the (Muslim) community, make them feel comfortable for themselves. We could not support that type of message,” Raza said.

The congress was founded in October 2001 and has 300 dues-paying members out of a national Muslim population of more than 750,000.

It has acted as a voice for progressive Muslims, especially following the recent arrests of terror suspects in the GTA and during the Israel-Hezbollah war.

Weekend marches in Toronto protesting Lebanese casualties in the war included a small number of demonstrators who burned Israeli flags and carried posters supporting Hezbollah, the militant Shiite group outlawed in Canada as a terrorist organization.

Besides Raza, members who resigned include president Niaz Salimi, vice president Rizwana Jafri, secretary-general El-Farouk Khaki, chief financial officer Abbas Syed, and directors Gary Dale, Atique Azad and Suhail Alsameed. Fatah’s departure from his job earlier this month was unconnected to the dispute.

“(They) have been working with the community for numerous years,” Raza said.

“It is a matter of separation from MCC. It doesn’t mean that they will stop working with the community.

“We wanted to make sure that we were not associated with MCC, that we do not support the current deviation in the position of the Muslim Canadian Congress.”

The departing members planned to meet last night to discuss establishing the Canadian Muslim Union, which “will be far more responsive to the issues being faced by the community at large, rather than having a very single agenda that the MCC (has),” Raza said.

Fatah said a new congress executive has already been put in place, with Farzana Hassan as president.

Gustavo, I have no appetite for white convert displays of Muslim upmanship vis-a-vis secular born Muslims: “I’m more Muslim than youuuuu.” That Okie convert should remember that putting others down in order to enhance one’s own “Islamic authenticity” is a losing game. What he does to others will in the end be done to him.

Maybe I’m unduly cynical, but it seems to me that 30-some white converts are often more idealistic than sensible. Too many of them are so enamoured with stuff about “true Islam” or “our beautiful deen” which they have read in books, or heard at conferences, but have no clue how what they see as “mainstream” Islam acts in real life to constrain (and sometimes mutilate) reall people’s lives.

As for spitting in the face of anyone, words fail me.
Why can’t Muslims accept their own self-hating dissenters? Other faiths often manage to. It’s part of life in the modern world, after all—people have issues with the faith they’ve been raised in, write about it, make heart-rending films about it, whatever. Mature people of faith consider the critique contained in such performances of dissent, ask themselves how their faith communities could produce fewer self-hating members, and try to improve their ways of dealing with diversity within the community.

Yeah, I hate to generalize, (and this is prrobably 99% bitchiness on my part), but I get furious when I hear these young “new-verts” talking about “their beautiful deen” and Alhumdulillahi this and that and inshallah everything else.

It’s like, you don’t have to say Insh’allah if I ask if you are going to eat that extra gulab jamun. It’s right in front of you!!!!! It drives me craaaaazy!

Eh, it’s probably me projecting or something.

And Gustavo, spitting on people? Ugh, that’s soooo ’86.

Muslim Hedonist,

Other points of his khutba were great despite his comments about Progressives.

I notice that more and more Muslims, my age and younger who revert, and some are like me, cultural Muslim reverts, who would be natural allies of PMU are not.

I am a cynic period when it comes to American activist organizations.

This includes all types of Muslim organizations period.

However, I understand that the dynastic period of Islam was not perfect. I understand that even in Islamic history, we have recorded massacres and genocides of Jews even in tolerant Andalucian Spain.

The more I learn about Islam, I realize that Muslims and Christians have the same problems and their history have interesting parallels and similarities.

I am a former Christian, but I also remember the teachings of Isa when he said, “My kingdom is not of this world” and I adhere to this concept of shariah.

To me shariah is more about legal traditions that have no place in today’s world since we have no supranational Islamic caliphate and notions of justice and fairness have changed.

Shariah is antiquated as many people understand it. I understand the tension between Islam of the heart and Islam of the state/society/world order.

I would be a full not to question the history of Islam as presented to me in conferences, websites, and books.

But this Okie imam, he is well versed in Islam and his Arabic sounds excellent.

He is a traditionalist on many scales, even as a gay man, I kind am leaning towards a “tradito-Salafi” way of understanding Islam to borrow from OmarG’s way of putting it.

But I understand that ultimately Islam is about personal accountability, and I am permissive of dissent.

However, Tarek has crossed the line for me. He is WORSE than Irshad, I love the woman and my mother loves her too. She does not come across as cocky as Aslan Reza.

It seems too many Progressive Muslims make celebrities out of cocky, arrogant, immigrant silver spoons and their progeny. They seem impressed with university degrees from secular institutions in Islamic studies, big deal, so you spent a summer in Lebanon at American International University studying Modern Standard Arabic and your wife is a white woman from a Connecticut Episcopalian background who now shows off in public with a silk D&G hijab and A/X sunglasses.

You live in the suburbs and drive a BMW with a dog and white picket fence. You have Jewish friends who talk politics with and the fate of political and religious Zionism and its relation to the state of Israel.

The problem with Progressives is their own intolerance hence why I reject the label and consider myself a “liberal independent” Muslim who does not see Zaytuna in Hayward, CA as an Islamist organization.

I may overall agree with most Leftist Muslim stances, but when it comes to some of the Progressive Muslim celebrities out there, I can’t stand them.

Irshad Manji, for all her flaws, demonstrates a sense of humility and she knows when to draw the line when Islamophobes flock to her like bees to honey. Her manner in public is one that is truly Islamic, Reza and Fatah can suck my gonads.

There are problems with our server at the moment and I cannot seem to get into the site. Ilan is fixing it. But El-Farouk wanted me to update the list of resignees. More people are leaving:

Amr Malik
Jehad Aliwaiwi
Nadine Estrada Karachi

El-Farouk has also accepted my long standing invitation to be a blogger here. As soon as I can get on the admin side of the site, he’ll be set up with an account. Godwilling tonight.

You all can talk to him about this directly.

Gustavo, I’ve come the reluctant conclusion that much of the on-going conflict between progressive and “mainstream” Muslims in North America comes down to a contest among (mainly upper-class) immigrants over who will get to represent Islam in the media. Period.

The immigrants who founded (and often still run) groups like ISNA, CAIR, ICNA, and so forth tend to have ties of one sort or another to Islamist groups such as the Arab world’s Muslim Brotherhood or the subcontinent’s Jamaat-i Islami. Such Islamist groups often see themselves as having the only “true” Islam, which they should also guide everyone else to adhere to.

You’d never know, listening to these “mainstream” groups, that there are liberal Muslim thinkers in their countries of origin who sometimes put forward less restrictive views than those that we here in North America are told that “all Muslims have always agreed upon,” and that we only question this sort of thing because we’re “western” (as if being Western is a bad thing). We are being presented with a sanitised picture of reality. Just as Islamist groups like to ignore or marginalise liberal voices when possible in their countries of origin, they want to do the same here in order to prevent people from being “misguided”, as they see it.

It is unfortunate that immigrant progressives tend to share this same political and social approach towards debate and dissent—that only the one, true, correct voice of guidance (meaning, theirs) is allowed to be heard, and all others must be marginalised or drowned out.

Increasingly, I am coming to the conclusion that all this jockeying for the limelight is irrelevant to converts. It does nothing to help us even survive, much less to grow as Muslims, or to raise our kids in faith.

Hedonist

I agree with Hedonist, you’re a revert?

The first thing that riled me over the cartoon debate was this media bullshit that iconography of the Prophet is strictly forbidden in Islam.

I’m like what the fuck, I’m Persian, and iconography plays a huge role in Shia art, both political and religious including the Prophet either depicted with a veil or none at all.

The other thing, I’m sick of South Asians and Arab Middle Easterners dominating what Islam is period.

Blacks make up the majority of the Muslim ummah in America, but Blacks are largely invisible, their voices unheard and unseen in the “mainstream” mosques.

I’m going to have to apply for an internship with CAIR, I will have to infiltrate the organization and unlike Tarek, I know how to approach fundies, they love me!

The other thing, there are many ways of being a Muslim and many ways of being progressive without adhering to labels or organizations.

I find it interesting that MCC only has 300 due-paying members, and now there is MCCII: CMU.

Okay, what’s to say that the same drama does not happen again.

I can tell one thing, from the queer and Latino progressive orgs I did in college, they were filled with drama and ego.

I have no sympathy towards the drama in Toronto, more and more Muslims in southern California are taking note of the Progressive Muslim Movement and making their side commentaries in khutbas and events addressed towards reverts.

You guys are losing the battle and losing potential recruits in California, land of gay pride events, land of gay partnerships, land of tree hugging hippies, and anti-war activists.

Land of GOOD LOOKING MUSLIMAHS, not all areas of the country are blessed with this asset.

Yes Gustavo, I’m a convert (I hate the term “revert”—to me it sounds like another way of saying “immature”).

It doesn’t surprise me that khutbas would slam the progressives. “Mainstream” organizations have put in many years of trying to get Muslims to see them as authoritative representatives of Islam in this part of the world, and they aren’t going to sit by and watch a few uppity progs put a counter-narrative out there.

As for drama, don’t worry, Toronto Muslims are good at this sort of thing. Dramatic splits, coups of mosque boards of directors by conservative factions, mud-slinging aimed at former imams, etc. What, you don’t have this kind of stuff in California?

This practice of slamming progressives or whatever is not monopolized by Islam. People are slamming eachother across the board. It’s a human issue and will take the form, use the language of, whatever scene they’re in: religious, political, geographic, racial, etc…

The idea that someone gets a platform and slams a group in order to use it as another climbing step in the cult-of-personality ladder is the great human agenda! :)

Isn’t it fun to listen to???

F-ing jerks. All of us (when we’re doing it.)

And yes I realize the weird porno overtones of this post: “slamming” “slam” “doing it” et al.

Well put Baraka. It’s the cult of personality that ought to really
perturb us. I don’t think it’s fun to listen to, not in this climate
of hysteria, growing racial divisions, irrational fear, instant experts,
wannabe celeberities, massive dislocation and parnoid hurt.

It feels like a bad Kafka novel minus the civility plus a whole lot of dangerously armed wackos. You are right jerks all of us when we
do it, sometimes without realizing how we feed off of each other’s
fear.