Dear Dr.
Salam..
I have 2 scenarios about the future of Muslims in the west: One says It's dark, & the other says the opposite. I'm confused. May you explain the truth?
Answer
As-salamu alaykum.
The future, of course, is known only to Allah. In surat al-Jinn the believing jinn show their sincerity by saying: 'And we do not know whether ill is intended for the people of the earth, or whether their Lord wishes good guidance for them.' However we know that optimism is from the Sunna. And in fact I am optimistic. This is for two reasons. Firstly, Western society is far less hostile to Islam than it was twenty years ago when I first joined Islam. This is largely due to the multiculturalist agenda which increasingly prevails among journalists, thinkers, social administrators, and politicians. Christianity is no longer acceptably seen as the normality of the West. My students are non-Muslims, but I find them extremely respectful and openminded. Secondly, Western Islam is beginning to find its own voice and its own leadership. The older generation of mosque and community leaders is starting to give way to a new generation of believers who were born in the West and are far more able to understand their environment and to respond creatively to it than were their parents. There are at least 300 young British and American Muslims studying Islam in places of traditional learning such as Syria and Hadramawt, and they are beginning to return and transform their communities.
Name
Noor
-
Profession
Question
How can the last events and the attaks on Afghanistan effect the setuations of the Muslims in The West?
Answer
As-salamu alaykum.
In the immediate aftermath of the New York and Washington attacks many of us were concerned at the prospect of a massive backlash against Muslim communities. However the general perception now in the communities is that the reaction was far milder than some had been led to believe. I spoke to the Mayor of London at the end of September and his information was that the level of violence against Muslims was not statistically higher at that time than it had been before September 11. Of course there have been some attacks, but a generalised pogrom against Muslims has not yet materialised.
Reactions to the Muslim debate over the US attacks on the Taliban have been muddled, largely because the Muslim view has been so divided. There has been a small minority of extremist Muslims who have advocated a violent response, and they have been unduly platformed by the mass media, which has generated a certain amount of fear and antipathy. However the majority of non-Muslims in Europe are extremely unsure about the wisdom of the US attacks, and are prepared to sympathise with Muslim opposition to the war. The long-term fallout remains to be seen, but is likely to depend on events, and on the agility of Muslim community leaders.
Name
Ahmad
-
Profession
IslamOnline
Question
how do you think the latest descicions and laws passed recently by the congress could affect the future of minorities there in general and Moslames in particular ?
Answer
As-salamu alaykum.
I have no detailed information on the new legal provisions. However it is certain that they will not be in violation of certain constitutional rights, which could only be set aside by an amendment to the Constitution, which I think is unlikely unless there are more, and even more drastic attacks attributed to Muslims. The law provides for the arrest and detention for seven days of individuals suspected of terrorist involvement, and is, in its ful rigour, applicable only to non-US citizens present in US territory. It will have little or no impact on Muslims with US passports.
We should, I think, before making haste to complain over what may seem to be legislation which might be intrusive or open to abuse, consider the equivalent situation in Shari'a law. Shari'a is non-statutory, and has no settled judicial procedures for the arrest and detention of terrorist suspects; however the principle of ihtisab allows not merely an officer of the qadi, but a private citizen, to intervene against activities which are clearly subversive of the imam's rule. The new US laws, as I understand them, would not be unacceptable if passed, or at least included in judicial convention, in a Muslim jurisdiction.
Finally, we should remember that extremists threaten the situation of Muslims in the West. Everything, within moral bounds, that can be done to reduce the possibility of the recurrence of events such as those of September 11, should be regarded favourably by Muslims.
Name
mohammed
- Denmark
Profession
Question
asalam alykum,
my question has nothing to do with the subject ,can i preform haj on behalf of my grand mother knowing she is alive but she is sick and can't do a thing on her own and thank god i have done my hajj.
thanking you in advance mohammed.
Answer
As-salamu alaykum.
Since you have accomplished the farida, the obligatory hajj, you are entitled to do hajj and umra for those who have died without performing the obligation, or those who are alive and permanently unable to do so, informing them beforehand that you are doing this, and making the appropriate niyya at the time of beginning ihram. If she has already performed her obligatory hajj then you should not do one on her behalf.
Name
noha
-
Profession
Question
What is your advices and suggestions to the muslims in the west to keep and protect their acheavements, specially i've heard that after 10 years maybe the islam will remove from the west?
Answer
As-salamu alaykum.
Only Allah knows the future, because it is entirely in His hands.
I have written an article containing some speculations on the future of Islam in the west following the new millennium, which is available at www.masud.co.uk
It is extremely unlikely that Islam will vanish from the Western countries. We might expect, if current extremist trends continue, more severe restrictions on immigration from Muslim countries, or on Muslim 'extremist' asylum-seekers. However the majority of Muslims are increasingly making themselves indispensable to the local economies. For instance, almost a third of staff in the British National Health Service hospitals are Muslims. If they left, the hospitals would collapse.
It is worth pointing out that each Western country has its own dynamic. In the United Kingdom, hostility to Islam is part of the political agenda only of the British National Party, which is a tiny extremist group with no political representation whatsoever in parliament or local government. In some Continental countries, however, the far right is more powerful. Filip de Winter, president of the Flemish nationalist party the Vlaams-Blok, which controls around a third of Flemish seats in the Belgian parliament, has called for the prohibition of Islam in Belgium. Similar noises can be heard from other extremists, such as the Archbishop of Bologna, who last year called for an end to Muslim immigration and the closure of mosques. However these voices represent the chauvinisms of Europe's Fascist past, and are anachronisms in the growing atmosphere of multiculturalism and relativism.
Name
Nouran Shorbagy
-
Profession
Student
Question
How do you forsee the future of Muslims affecting the Western academia and its methodology while it is secular in its underpinnings and how can we transform the Muslim acdemia in Islamic countries to have a different path?
I am seeing the future of Muslims also on that level not only the grassroot one.
Also how do you evaluate the attempts to foun Islamic Colleges and Universities in the West?
Answer
As-salamu alaykum.
Thank you for your important question.
One of the most encouraging developments over the past ten years has been the steady growth of the Muslim presence in Islamic Studies departments in major Western universities. I think it is now true to say that the majority of middle-level lecturers in British universities with an Islamic specialisation are Muslims. I could name, for instance, Professor Neil Robinson of the University of Wales at Lampeter, myself in Cambridge, Dr Yasin Dutton at the University of Edinburgh, Dr Sophie Gilliat-Ray at the University of Cardiff, Dr Yahya Michot in Oxford, and others. In America, of course, there is another list.
As for the secular underpinnings of Western universities it is a moot point whether these are preferable, for our purposes, to their Christian antecedents. I personally find the atmosphere in which everything one says and publishes is subject to careful criticism far more healthy and stimulating than life in a confessional ghetto in which one is excused, by the consensus of one's colleagues, the duty to begin from first principles. Islamic theology in particular has grown rather complacent and introspective over the past few centuries, and needs to be put under the harsh light of text-critical and metaphysical analysis in order to reformulate itself and place itself in a position to defend its core postulates according to methods which will be convincing to the unconvinced. This is, of course, what Imam al-Ghazali did in his day, with his refutation of Ibn Sina using the Greeks' own categories and methods.
Rather for the same reason, I would suggest that it is not in the best interests of Muslim scholarship to be confined to confessional ghettoes somewhere within or outside the mainstream universities. We can learn, I think, from the experience of Catholic universities as these began to create themselves in the 19th century United States in a world dominated by the Protestant Ivy League colleges. For reasons not unlike those often advanced by Muslims, the Catholics created institutions such as Notre Dame University, and Loyola University in Chicago, and several others, with the result that a kind of insiders' laziness about method and about the reality of the challenges of new methodologies prevailed and much Catholic scholarship was stultefied accordingly. People like Bernard Lonergan and David Tracey are exceptional largely because they tried to sidestep the Catholic universities and make their way in the mainstream. I hope Muslim scholars will remain in mainstream faculties and avoid the temptation to hide themselves away in institutions that by their very nature are unlikely to attract much respect from the real world outside.
Name
Waheed
- United States
Profession
IT
Question
You have to look at the historical and religious back ground of Europe(West). West is and has been the basian of the christianity and it has been at odd with Islam. I do not think, we will ever have a complete conversion of their people. They really believe that they are at right path(even though they are wrong). We have example from Spain and Eastern Europe(ottomon Empire). Those countries went back to Christianity. Muslims in the west have to live as minorities in the West. They have to define how they want to live in the West. They can not exercise their full religious rights in those countries (for example, inheritence and poligomy). Jews even has a better position than Muslims right now(because of their race). What you say about this back ground and situation. Even 2nd or 3rd generation would not matter.
Answer
As-salamu alaykum.
Since I am of Western origin myself I believe that I have a certain ability to understand the mindset of my own people. Let us draw a comparison, in order to illustrate my understanding, with the early days of Islam. The Sahaba, upon whom be the good pleasure of Allah, converted peoples who were more deeply committed to Christianity than are modern Europeans. Syria, Libya, and many other countries, were profoundly Christian and produced the greatest of the Church Fathers. Afghanistan was passionately Buddhist. Java, until the arrival of Sunan Bonang in the 16th century, was entirely Hindu. If we think that the modern West cannot accept Islam, then we belittle the religion's attractiveness, or we suggest that Westerners are stupid (which, given their various undeniable accomplishments, is difficult), or we suggest that mass conversion is impossible. However the history of Islam shows that it is possible. Uprooting Islam is extraordinarily difficult. I was recently in Spain at a new madrasa there (www.al-madrasa.com) and was delighted to meet people whose families had held fast to Islam through the centuries of persecution until the final legalising of Islam in the country upon the death of Franco in 1975. The Balkans were largely Muslim until the Ottoman withdrawal. During a visit to Jerusalem last year I was pleased to note the number of Israeli converts, including a former paratrooper, and to hear from a Sufi shaykh in the city that if only the present disorders could be fairly resolved, that very large numbers of Israelis would convert.
All this confirms my own understanding of the Western mind, which is that it is very receptive to Islam, if intelligently and gently presented.
As for the exercise of full Muslim rights in the West, this is not a terribly helpful way of looking at matters. I constantly hear Muslims in the UK telling me how they feel freer to practice Islam in Europe than in their countries of origin. Inheritance can, of course, be divided according to Shari'a in UK law through the Arbitration Act. Polygamy is de facto legal, and the fact that it is not recognised de jure by the English courts is only a minor inconvenience to those many British Muslims who are polygamously married.
Name
Ahtasham
- India
Profession
Chemist
Question
Westerners are by and large liberal towards their own religion as well as the religion of others. They treat their countrymen just as human beings without differentiating into Muslims, Christians, Hindus etc. Therefore, there should be no problems for Muslims in future. Please Comment
.
Answer
As-salamu alaykum.
Most Muslims who I meet in the UK and the US confirm that once their neighbours and colleagues get to know them, they are accepted and respected. Of course there are extreme and exclusionary voices in the West, as there are among Muslims, but they are a small minority.
We need, however, to recall that the tolerance and conviviality widely experienced in the West is not grounded in revelation, but in a kind of religious indifferentism. As such, therefore, it may be vulnerable in the future. The Third Reich grew out of the liberalism of the Weimar Republic. This is why a toleration built on religious teachings that explicitly forbid persecution, rather than on a secular consensus vulnerable to mood swings at elections, is preferable.
Name
suhaib ahmad
- Palestine
Profession
medical student
Question
i beleive that the future is for us, but do not you agree with me that some muslims are more dangerous on islam than our real enemy ???
Answer
As-salamu alaykum.
The enemies of Islam are only three in number: the Shaytan, the Nafs, and Hawa (passion). Where religion ceases to be a method of spiritual transformation, which when complete will inevitably transform everything else, and instead becomes a flag which people wave loudly to proclaim their sense of wounded pride, then of course it is a danger both to other Muslims and to the world. The devil is never more dangerous than when he masquerades as an angel.
Name
arfin elbosnawy
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
Profession
Question
I just wonna know when you gonna start teach so colled american Muslimms
to defand Islam and Shariah and not to support Bush and so on , maybe the life in america is much easyer then a life in Afghanistan , maybe we have sold our pride ,our Jihad for a coca cola , bananas , piece of white bread (but know we have been told brawn bread is more healtier ) but fear Allah for He is inded still awaike .
I ask Allah to change the touths of so called american Muslims for they soon or later gonna be sorry for trasting KUFARS .
Answer
Merhaba Arfine!
Islam is about success for the Muslims; and the supreme success that we can bring about is salvation. Muslims living in the United States are conscious of the heavy responsibility that Allah has charged them with to bring the message of Truth to a people who are still tragically ignorant of it. The more Islam spreads in the United States, the more able we will be to influence policy. Those who think that Americans can never convert should beware of underestimating the power of Allah ta'ala and the attractiveness of Islam. Every year I teach a group of American high school teachers about Islam, in a two-week intensive programme, and it is always moving to see how favourable they quickly become, particularly when this leads to their conversion. But Allah only opens their hearts to Islam when they see intelligence, wisdom and beauty among Muslims. If they see anger and self-righteousness, then it is not easy to see how they could convert. Confronting the West nowadays should take the supreme form, which is a confrontation of souls, not of weapons. On the level of souls we are absolutely superior. On the level of weapons, the US will destroy us every time. We must choose which outcome we prefer.
Name
Ahmad
- Saudi Arabia
Profession
Engineer
Question
Are muslims in the west have the same rights as reguler citizens?
Answer
As-salamu alaykum.
Yes, de jure, because they are regular citizens. There are no religious tests for citizenship such as prevailed until the 1840s, when full rights were provided to every religious group in Britain including the Nonconformists and the Catholics. It was our experience in Europe that the legal privileging of one religious denomination had two dangerous consequences. Firstly, it led to civil war, as with the Thirty Years War in Germany, and the Huguenot uprisings in France. Secondly, it generated a general sense of injustice in society that caused many educated people to become disillusioned with religion's claims to provide justice. Legal inequality was a powerful engine of the secularisation process.
In the United Kingdom, there are a few residual laws which privilege the established church. For instance, the head of state (the monarch) must be a communicant member of the Church of England. Hence if, for instance, Prince Charles converted to Islam, he would have to forfeit his right of succession. It is also the case that the higher chamber of Parliament, the House of Lords, reserves a number of seats for Anglican bishops.
In practice, however, it is relatively rare for Muslims in the UK to object to these relics of the past. They do not substantially affect us.
Rights, of course, do not have to be legal rights. We can speak, often rather unclearly, of social rights as well. On this level, we might say that Muslims are often substantially disadvantaged. To take a topical example: television chiefs like to invite Muslim extremists to offer their views on TV, rather than more mainstream leaders. This is because the viewers find that such extremists confirm some popular negative images of Muslims as narrow-minded bigots. This policy, which is recurrent, is certainly an infringement of Muslim social rights. A shouting Wahhabi extremist from Tunisia who refuses to criticise the murder of priests (a spectacle we recently had to watch) is unacceptable to most Muslims in the UK, who are mainly Hanafis and who want to live in peace with their neighbours.
There are other social rights which are slowly being addressed. For instance, the prisons in the UK now have Muslim chaplains. The larger airports provide Muslim prayer rooms, and so do some universities, and also BBC and other national corporation headquarters.
Unfortunately, we still have a long way to go.
Name
bill
-
Profession
Question
If muslims are so sure that their religion is the truth why dont you let people preach their religion in your countries? in an islamic country can a christian teach his religion to others. also why is it that you kill someone if they leave islam? how can you say that there is no compulsion in religion? should a christian country kill all christians that leave their religion? do on to others as you would have done onto you.
Answer
Greetings.
In most Muslim countries that I have visited there are Christian missionaries who have been active for many years. I have often heard from traditional Muslim scholars that this is acceptable, as it provides an opportunity to preach to them. I recently had a conversation along these lines with an American Bible Society translator who had worked in a Muslim country for ten years, after which she was simply charmed into Islam. Of course, this is not the only opinion; but in my experience it is widespread.
The issue of the punishment for apostasy is a fascinating example of debates unfolding in Islamic law. Islam has four orthodox schools of law, and traditionally the majority view in all four of them held that apostasy carries the death penalty. In recent years, however, many Muslim scholars have pointed out that even among the medieval writers there are leading figures who, on the basis of the Muslim scriptures, have contested this. An example, from the Hanafi school, would be al-Sarakhsi; and from the Malikis, al-Baji. The reason for the difference of opinion (hardly an uncommon phenomenon in Islamic law!), is that the Qur'an nowhere lays down a penalty for apostasy, and the Hadith texts have been interpreted in very contrasting ways.
For this reason, Shaykh Mahmud Shaltut, the highest religious authority in Egypt during the 1960s, issues an opinion to the effect that apostasy was not a criminal offence in Islamic law. This view has been followed widely in the Muslim world. In Malaysia, for instance, the various states have different Sharia Ordinances, but none of them requires more than a short period of imprisonment for those found guilty of apostasy.
How far this trend will spread it is, of course, impossible to say. Movements such as the Taleban are, of course, utterly unimpressed by it.
If you want a detailed discussion of the arguments, with the relevant quotes from the Hadith and the medieval and modern jurists, you should look at Muhammad Hashim Kamali's book 'Freedom of Expression in Islam', published in Cambridge in 1997.
Name
Paul
- United States
Profession
Air Force
Question
If many people of the Islamic faith are against "Western" ideals and the Christian heritage of the USA, then why do they want to be a part of our society, if not for the possibility of material gain?
Answer
Greetings!
Your question is a good one, and I am largely in sympathy. Of course, most American Muslims that one meets are not particularly anti-Western or anti-Christian, although they will have polite reservations about aspects of modern Western culture, or Christian doctrines. As for the radicals, they are in the grip of a psychological state that, according to Islamic sages I have consulted, is the result of envy. They cannot understand why the West is powerful while the Islamic countries are in such a sorry state. Hence the near-schizophrenic nature of their existence in the West. It has to be emphasised again, however, that they are a minority, albeit sometimes a noisy one.
Jane McAuliffe, in her book 'Qur'anic Christians' (Cambridge University Press), has a good analysis of why the Qur'an is so sympathetic to Christians, although critical of certain mainstream Christian doctrines.
