Founding conference attracts diverse gathering resolved to create physical spaces for progressive Muslims

Bronxville, NY/Los Angeles, CA: The progressive Muslim movement in the United States took a significant step forward as a diverse collection of activists, organizers, and academics gathered at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, May 15-17, for the first conference of Muslims for Progressive Values (MPV, website: www.mpvusa.org). Coming together in fellowship, they joined in communal devotion, shared the various personal, intellectual, and spiritual journeys that brought them there, discussed how to formulate their positions on political, social, and cultural issues and how to interact with other progressives and other Muslims. They also elected an Executive Board to lead them for the next two years.

Its been a couple of weeks since I last reviewed the Friday prayer in my city. There’s a good reason for that: I simply wasn’t able to go. So, instead of making stuff up, I did not write about it. But, today I did go and my intentions were less than pure, at least in the Sufi sense. You see, I skipped classes yesterday; in fact I skipped breakfast, morning coffe, lunch, work and coherent speech. And, despite my exhaustion, I thought it would be good form to show up today since S. is old school and kind of expects people to show up. Seriously, so would I.

This is a dilemma that many progressive Muslims face, how to be critical while maintaining a tangible association with Muslims in their given geographic area despite their opinion being unpopular or deemed controversial/promoting "fitnah."

As for the khutba reviews, though they are insightful, a single mosque and its selection of speakers is not representative of the countless mosques known in America or those that sprout out like tumble weed (the store front mosque).

Maybe someone should tell this good neighbor that Muslims agree one should not kill and eat pigs, but rather race them at county fairs. I mean, duh! 

Houston suburb angry over mosque plan

Some residents object to plan; neighbor threatens to hold pig races The Associated PressUpdated: 3:24 p.m. ET Dec 7, 2006

KATY, Texas – A plan to build a mosque in this Houston suburb has triggered a neighborhood dispute, with community members warning the place will become a terrorist hotbed and one man threatening to hold pig races on Fridays just to offend the Muslims.

This morning, I decided to test a new Friday routine. Since the guest preacher from Egypt doesn’t deliver his sermons in English, I figured there was little point in listening to him. While I can understand the words in Arabic, sermons in my native language delivered by native speakers have a far greater rhetorical impact on me. The subjects of sermons, too, are just as important. Preachers who have experience in the kind of lives we lead can use metaphors that strike us like lightening and instill in us an immediate understanding. I remember fondly some of the sermons in my home city by a Blackamerican preacher who had converted in the 1950’s, Imam Mansour. Because of his colorful metaphors, I would see rows of heads nodding with grins, because we all had been there and knew the exact nuances of what he was telling us. I don’t experience that in this city, but for one memorable episode when a Blackamerican imam form a different city stood on the pulpit and spoke plainly, telling us in a fairly good fashion that he knew “what the game is, and I’ll tell you, you young Muslims, the gig is up!” Only a few heads nodded in knowing agreement, while perhaps the majority immigrant audience was struggling to understand what a “gig” was (and no, its not short for Gigabyte in this case).

Rites and rights

Margot Badran traces the mosque movement from Mecca to Main Street

Reprinted from al-Ahram

Women are flocking to mosques around the world. Now, during Ramadan, they are packing mosques nightly in many countries for tarawwih or the recitation of the Qur'an. It has not always been easy, or indeed possible, for women to participate in communal worship.

I was reading an article by Hatoon Al-Fasi xommenting on the  possible prohibition against women on the main floor of the Mosque in Makka.  She mentions how the Prophet forbade people from prohibiting women from coming to the mosque. While we've heard this many times before in different contexts, what we seem to not see is why he needed to say this in the first place? Does it not seem apparent that there were people even then who wanted to push women out of the public sphere? Now, what's sad is that this trend continues to this day despite the Prophet's admonitions and excellent character in accomodating women and caring for them. Why? Perhaps I am right: Ignorance (Jahiliyya) never died out and ignorant ideas and practices continue to reassert themselves, only more dangerously after having coopted Islamic personalities.

I head to NYC on occasion, as Masjid al Farah is the closest, most tolerable mosque. Imam Feisal's khutbahs are like warm honey, and men and women pray together in a rather cozy space; men who arrive late go upstairs, giving equal opportunities to men and women to see the imam, and fully participate in Jumu'ah.

I've come to the conclusion that Jumu'ah, and indeed all congregational worship, is meant to bring together the vertical (human to God) and horizontal (human to creation) dimensions of faith. That we don't merely watch the imam celebrate Jumu'ah, and we don't worship to justify the gathering- the gathering and the worship are each other's purpose. That's part of the reason why I object to segregation in worship; it undermines an essential aspect of Jumu'ah. This is why I spent half the khutbah wondering why a few inches of wood were keeping me from participating in Jumu'ah.

I was sick again, thanks to a cold I got from the my son's birthday party… I wasn't sure I would go, but I decided that staying caged in the house was not a pleasant prospect. Alhamdulillah, I missed the sermon this Friday. Yes, its gotten to that point where I learn so little that missing it listening to it is the same. I've pondered a number of verses (ayaat) and sayings (Hadith, for the those challenged in English-Islamic terminology). They talk about black spots on the heart and other such deficiencies. For many years, I told myself I just needed to increase my faith (iman) more and more. But, it didn't help. Instead, the more I read, the more I consulted preachers (imams) the more I came to see how wrong I might be in seeing it as only a deficiency within myself. In fact, so much of what we do conforms so little to the character of the Prophet that I've often considered divorce. Say what? No, not from my wife! I'd keep her around anyday over any and all Muslims alive today. I mean divorce from the community. But, what form would that take?

Today was an easy Friday Prayer. My wife dropped me off while she and my father took the kids out. This saved me the quarter mile hike from the campus parking garage. With that and lower than average temperatures at a cool 89 degrees, I arrived cool and dry. I stopped by my department to clear out my desk; I will not be a teaching assistant this Fall along with several others due to funding constraints (and also because it seems I suck). Apparently, our government is not interested in creating a pool of intelligent experts in Near Eastern and Islamic Studies. In the 1950's and 60's, the government flooded Academia with funding for Soviet studies and Russian language. We won that one. But, I digress.