August 2020

I think it is time to take the Moulana Dawood Sampson debate to a different level. We have all had our outrage, our evaluations of the impact of his words, and the extent of rebuke by his peers among the clergy. The strategic question, now with just a few days to go in August — Women’s Month — is how we ensure that we can rid Muslim women, the Muslim Community and the general human and women’s rights community of this pandemic of sexism and misogyny, often masquerading as faith and religion?

So let me get 3 issues out of the way: firstly, we are a forgiving, Allah-Maaf, community and Moulana Dawood has asked for forgiveness. Those who can should forgive, but if there are women whose hurt and revulsion are so deep, then we who cannot experience that pain, cannot prescribe their response. But as for me: Allah Maaf!

Secondly, the man has confessed that he lacks emotional intelligence, so we have a duty to him, those who believe as he believes, and those who jumped to his defence — the entire “Mute-Cute” Brigade — to bring them to the light, through a combination of rehabilitation, re-education and regulation.

And thirdly, let’s get out of the way the issue of polygyny: there is a dominant belief, supported by interpretations of Shariah, that marrying more than one wife is permissible, some believe, recommended, and a few even believe it’s compulsory. Let’s accept that polygyny is permissible. We may need to shift to the ‘how’ of polygyny.

“Out of Difficulty comes Ease” — The Quran

If we want to learn the lessons and ensure that we emerge a better community from this difficult incident, then let’s search for the ease. Our point of departure, therefore, is not to make this a Moulana Dawood moment. It is a moment rather, where Muslims have recoiled from a raw, honest, boastful — even lustful — glorification of polygyny. For us to move forward, we must be thankful that we had gotten insight into the minds, the desires and the theological reasoning of some proponents and practitioners of polygyny and the underlying attitudes and beliefs about women. As one woman who is the first wife in a polygynous marriage said about her internal wrestling with her husband’s motive and his religious justification to marry a second wife: “I accepted it dutifully as Sunnah, even though I thought it was ‘belustigheid’ (lust). The Moulana showed me I was not mad or rebelling quietly against Allah!”

Let’s also be grateful that someone lacked the sophistication to dress a dubious intention (niyyah) with sophisticated words, as so many do. This was also not an uncharacteristic moment of jest, because utterances like “a woman is cute when she is mute” suggest a consistent pattern. Now we all have a good diagnosis from which to start curing our community of the underlying lack of respect for women and their role in society and their voice. “Mute is Cute” is the way the unsophisticated tell women to shut up. The sophisticated Sheikh will tell a qissa of advice to the bride at her wedding to put a toothpick between her teeth so that there is no danger of saying anything that could trigger an abusive husband. Similarly, the sophisticated will say beat her lightly with a toothbrush, whereas the unsophisticated say: “’n pak op ‘n dag!” (a beating a day)!

Did We also Fail Muslim Women?

As an activist in 1990, at the National Muslim Conference, where we influenced those who were writing the Bill of Rights and New Constitution for South Africa, we had dreams that we will have a society where all will enjoy equality and rights and freedom from discrimination, violence and indignity. We were torn between ensuring that Muslim Personal Law — which would right the apartheid wrong regarding Muslim marriage and divorce — be simply recognised by law, or that it be recognised but that we should still have a civil, court marriage, or that we should have a recognised nikah and we will suggest our own regulations. Subject to the other provisions of equality, dignity and rights in the Constitution, we agreed that we must recognise polygyny and we will — with the ulema — work out the regulations later.

Maybe we must ask maaf that 30 years later, and the ANC government should take responsibility also, there is no Muslim Personal Law and our divorces, marriages and polygyny are a free for all. This must be the moment to set it right and we must mobilise the whole Muslim community, not just the ulema, the whole women’s movement, not just Muslim women, the government, the courts, and the human rights agencies to ensure that we make right what we have neglected for 30 years.

“… if you fear injustice…” — The Quran

But let us say immediately that setting it right is about doing it according to the Shariah! Allah indeed says on polygyny, in a verse dealing with orphans, that we can marry two, three or four wives, but, if we even fear an injustice, then we should take only one, and again ends the verse with the exhortation to “to prevent you from injustice.” (Quran 4:3). We must, therefore, act to eliminate the possibility of injustice and have it written into the law, because we have proven incapable of managing it ourselves. So, what are the issues of consensus that should be written into law?

“Actions are According to Intentions” — Hadith

We obviously cannot write intention into the regulations. But because all who practice or advise polygyny invoke love for the Prophet (s) as their intention, we must test intention against prophetic practice. The Prophet (s) had affection for all of his wives and particularly loved some — Khadija and Aisha come to mind — but never was lust ever a motive or sexual prowess ever a condition. There was a general category of intention where some women faced enormous hardship (Sawda was 55 years old and lost her income after conversion to Islam); some were widowed by war (like Hafsa & Zaynab), while Umm Salama had no one to care for her and her children. The true sunnah was about alleviating hardship, even marrying older than you, but accepting to care for a destitute family, rather than leaving your own family destitute when marrying younger. Others were married to strengthen relationships with other communities (Rayhana, the Jew; Maria, the Christian; and Juwayriyyah of the Banu Mustaliq). We must, therefore, let each Muslim man, and the Iman who performs the nikah, be the ones who examine their consciences as to niyyah.

“Trust in God, but Tie Your Camel” — Hadith

But as to justice, we must regulate. Because people are weak and forgetful, we must tie our camel so that the law ensures the compliance with the Shariah regarding polygyny. If the Shariah demands transparency, we must outlaw secret marriages and insist on a letter or certificate of knowledge, if not permission, by the first wife. If a religious criterion is affordability, we should write in the need to produce an income statement that shows that all families will be cared for. If the Shariah includes financial equity, we should either have the estate divided at the point of the second marriage or a garnishee order written so that no family is financially neglected. And we must have a bureau which a woman in a polygynous marriage, who is not receiving equal treatment, has recourse to: if the Prophet (S) was so scrupulous in ensuring that each wife had an equal visitation rotation, then we who claim to love the Sunnah must be scrupulously held to that standard. Maybe we should address this in advocating for a Muslim Marriages Act consistent with the best values of the Bill of Rights and Constitution, rather than the ambitious project of Muslim Personal Law.

“Organise or Starve!” — Oscar Mpetha

We thought that people and the ulema will simply do the right thing. Thirty years later, we see that unless Muslim women are organised into a mighty movement in coalition with others, we will starve, as Oscar Mpetha told the food and canning workers who were suffering. This must translate into an active plan that mobilises a movement and coalitions for gender justice with capacity and resources to lobby lawmakers, petition the courts, hold scholars and leaders to account, pressurise the perpetrators and rehabilitate offenders.

This must also — if we fail to self-correct — lead to appropriate action against the serial offenders of the “Mute and Cute” Brigade, those who seek to silence women, who practice hate speech that denigrate women, and those who perpetrate gender-based violence. We may have to embark on ‘name and shame’ measures: you may get away with things in your home or mosque, but your bosses in government or the private sector must know that they’re employing someone who is violating the codes they’ve committed to upholding. We must petition the various Commissions (from gender to religious rights) so that alleged perpetrators could be tested in front of the Equality Court.

And we must find consensus on the best provisions to be inserted into a Muslim Marriages Act that acts in the interest of Muslim women. Most importantly, we must insert Muslim women into the mainstream of the Women’s Movement so that we act in pursuit of a gender equal society, rather than allow an island of Muslim exceptionalism that allows some to say and do things outside of the main values of society.

The post The Pandemic of Sexism and Misogyny Masquerading as Religion appeared first on World for All.

6 April 2020

The Prophet Muhammad (s) is reported in Bukhari as having said: “The likeness of the one who observes the limits prescribed by Allah and that of the one who transgresses them is like the people who get on board a ship after casting lots. Some of them are in its lower deck and some of them in the upper deck. Those in the lower deck, when needing water, go to the people in the upper deck and say to them: ‘If we make a hole in the bottom of the ship we shall not harm you.’ If the people of the upper deck leave them to carry out this plan, they will all be drowned. But if they do not let them go ahead, all of them will remain safe.”

I call to mind this hadith in response to the lawyer’s letter sent to the South African Government by a maverick lawyer on behalf of two so-called clergy bodies who, by their own admission, represent only 20 mosques in South Africa. They want the Government to let Muslims continue their 5 daily ritual prayers in the mosque, making the case firstly, that prohibiting this is an infringement of Muslims’ rights to freedom of movement and the free practice of their religion. Secondly, they assert that: “Considering the Shariah, Muslims are required to pray five times daily IN THEIR MOSQUES.” (My emphasis)

This is what happens when a radio mufti, a Muslim tabloid, a bogus council and a maverick lawyer converge: they claim rights, but shun responsibility; they pretend that the right to worship is infringed; they then confuse a fard — the obligation to pray — and a confirmed sunnah — the recommended tradition of prayer in mosques; and thus expose a character flaw of not being honest, not even with established facts in Islam. The hadith asks us to distinguish between those who observe the limits prescribed by Allah and those who transgress them.

They are also opportunistic. Previously charlatans argued against the Coronavirus by resorting to conspiracy theories, calling it a Chinese virus, a hoax or hype, a punishment for all kinds of people, and a disease imposed by God and one that would be removed by God without human precaution. As the global Muslim community takes precautions like closing mosques for prayers and jumuah, and even the Saudis are weighing up the prospect of continuing the haj for this year, these arguments fall away. The tracing of infections to tablighi gatherings in Kuala Lumpur, Delhi and Raiwind have also removed any moral force from their arguments.

Now they appear to plead for concessions. Suddenly the Minister of Transport is their model. The misguided cannot guide other misguided: if 100% or 75% full taxis is misguided, so is gathering people in the mosques. These are the people of the lower deck wanting to make a hole in the bottom of the boat. As the Prophet said: “They will all be drowned!” They do not seek so much a concession as they seek to deceive — as with the name Jamiatul Ulema they have claimed for themselves — and open the floodgates of extremism.

My advice to the government is to probe if indeed it is such a ‘spiritual depression’ — the Arabic word they invoke is ‘Qabdh’ — to be separated from congregational prayers in the mosque, then why does the affliction of qabdh only affect men, and not women? How many of their mosques relieve or cure women from qabdh or spiritual depression by allowing them into the mosques? What if Christians and Jews have the equivelant of spiritual depression for Shabbat or Easter?

But the clear instruction from the Prophet Muhammad (s) in the hadith is absolutely unequivocal: we cannot let them go ahead. We have to stop them from making a hole in the bottom of the boat lest we all drown! We have tolerated them when they were supportive of, or ambiguous about, ISIS and violent extremism, when they blocked legal recourse for women against misogyny, when they trade insults so regularly against those revered in our community, when they refer to the same government they now petition as a ‘Kuffaar” and evil one, and so forth.

The only challenge we now have is to find the best wisdom to implement the instruction of the Prophet (s) and devise ways of stopping them. This is no time for a false unity and solidarity with those knocking a hole in the boat. How do we defeat the people of the lower deck? The mainstream Muslim leadership must speak as one to tell the authorities that the people of the lower deck are a fringe, if vocal, minority; that they are misguided and seek to misguide; that, like all extremists, their extremism is now inert, but as soon as they find a source of power they will unleash destruction; and that together we have a responsibility to think of all the occupants of the boat.

More importantly, we need Muslims and all South Africans to understand the distinction between the mainstream and the fringe so that they don’t believe that the fringe speaks for us. If we do not, the resultant Islamophobic backlash will be severe when they see mosques open and churches closed. This is the time for leadership, despite our internal nuances and difference of opinion. Our differences are a source of mercy and blessing. Our difference with the fringe is a matter of drowning or not.

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Please find resource link here

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22 March 2020

A Moment of Rupture

Globally the community of Muslims has had to make an almost unprecedented decision: whether to close the mosques for both the communal daily prayers as well as the Friday prayers in response to Covid-19 or coronavirus. That the majority of clergy and congregations have taken the cautious and preventative route is a tribute to the reasonable, and maybe survivalist, gene within this community. It is an acknowledgement that we are experiencing unprecedented, if not existential, challenges today. Coronavirus has created a moment of crisis, if not rupture: our assumptions and traditions are disrupted, our fault lines are exposed and stark decisions confront us.

Copying Trump — A Radio Mufti, A Muslim Tabloid & A Bogus Council

Crises have a way of not only exposing your thinking, your intellectual disposition or your theological reasoning, but more importantly, your character. We can debate thought and theology, but not the character that denigrates those who sincerely try to do the right thing as ‘scum worse than pigs’ as a Muslim tabloid has done. We can debate thought, but not thought based on the ultimate suspicion — conspiracy theory — as a statement from a so-called ulema body does (in imitating Donald Trump by calling coronavirus a ‘Chinese Virus’) or as a prominent radio Mufti (also drawing from Trump’s ‘hoax’ playbook) does when speaking about a ‘media’ hype. Such suspicion, in a time of fear and danger, may well be the kind that could be sinful because it is without wisdom and it facilitates danger. Crises separate the chaff from the wheat, the charlatans from the scholars.

Islam — Religion of Mercy

If the response to fear and danger is to turn to God, then how we experience the divine is crucial. If God is ‘Most Merciful’ and the Prophet (s) is ‘a mercy unto all creation’ why do we listen to those who appropriate God and the Prophet for aims which are unmerciful, callous and refuses to see humanity in others? When the pandemic was seen to be affecting only China, it was divine punishment for their persecution of the Uighurs, and then it moved to Iran, and it was punishment for being Shias, and, I suppose the Italians were being punished for exposing us to their Catholic Carbs. Now it’s affecting the world and the punishment narrative continues as if God is punitive in essence, not forgiving and merciful; destructive and not the creator and sustainer; indiscriminate and pernicious, not just, kind and discerning. Especially those who rehearse the many names of God should display clarity of God’s attributes in the face of character flaws in the charlatans who carry weighty titles, wear the garb and talk the language, but display none of the wisdom, compassion and attributes of God and the Messenger (s).

Obstinacy + Blackmail + Labelling = Destruction

This logic takes another turn, however, when the virus is mainstreamed among Muslims — Sunni ones. For these charlatans it’s a test about whether you trust God or the evidence of your eyes. The evidence of your senses will tell you that about 16000 members of the Tabligh Jamaat refused to suspend their gathering (ijtima) in Kuala Lampur resulting in 50% of Malaysia’s infections being traced to the gathering. Today the entire Malaysia has shut business and communal worship. It’s a test of the strength of your faith as if faith is now defined, not by whether you pray, but if you pray in congregation! What’s the obligation and what’s the recommended supererogatory? To get his point across, at least the Mufti mostly uses emotional blackmail (like his fellow traveller, the Louisiana evangelical pastor, who defiantly told his defiantly convened congregation: ‘shake hands or are you sissies?’). However, the so-called ulema statement has no such scruples. For them they use the term ‘haraam’ in saying categorically that it is forbidden to close the mosques, to do compulsory prayers at home or to restrict numbers in the mosque. One would think them familiar with Imam Nawawi’s work that says even prayer in family congregation at home, will reap the rewards of the congregational prayer.

A False Choice: God IS Science!

The test for them is whether you have faith in God or faith in science and medicine. It’s a false choice! Scientific and medical knowledge were intrinsic to the very definition of knowledge in Islam until it was restricted to only the knowledge of worship. Before this we were leaders in science and in establishing the canons of medicine in pursuit of the Prophet’s (s) challenge that for every ailment, except old age, there is a remedy. If the charlatans today are so convinced that they are right to ignore science and medicine, then they should take an oath never to take any medicine or seek any treatment for any ailment they may have. This is the truthful path if you indeed believe that what afflicts you comes from God and the healing will come from God without any human precaution or intervention.

The Mosque — Spiritually Enriching for Men & Women?

These same people cry crocodile tears that the absence from the mosque and congregation is such a spiritual affliction that robs the believer of feeling connected, that diminishes the sense of ummah and that detracts from spiritual and ritual completeness. Yet, callously and without reflection, the Mufti fires off that ‘women have no business to be in the masjid!’ The first advice from those trying to hold off the closure of mosques is to prohibit women. This can’t be God speaking who holds each of us — men and women — equally accountable for our spiritual and worldly lives, nor can it be the Prophet (s) speaking who addressed and equally led men and women in congregational prayer. How is it that women have been deemed immune to the need for community, connectedness to the ummah and in need of spiritual and ritual completeness?

In this moment of rupture, when new habits and insights are formed, what do the charlatans really fear, other than that all women may now understand the benefits of being in the mosque and assert their right to be there, with the same passion that men now express in the face of its temporary closure? Or do they fear their irrelevance to the daily lives of Muslims. When you have driven theology with the sole mechanism of compliance to rules, and in times of stress and danger, those rules are then pragmatic rather than absolute, the enforcer of the rules may become less important.

What Do the Charlatans Fear?

They fear their monopoly over the intricacies of rules may be over as ordinary people work out for themselves the hierarchy of the maqasid (intents of Islam): they have learnt in this crisis the primacy of the preservation of life over other intents, and can therefore work out the primacy of ensuring your prayers individually or congregationally at home over your desire for praying in congregation in the mosque. They may also fear that pragmatism may enter the Muslim community where before we were dominated by absolutism: trust in God is absolute, but tying your camel is essential. God intervenes in human behavior through investing humans with common sense, not stupidity; wisdom, not memorized aphorisms; a sense of the common good, not self-righteous selfishness.

Most importantly, they fear their game may be up. For decades these charlatans have leveraged their interpretations of Islam to excuse the inexcusable and tolerate the intolerable and justify the unjustifiable. The result is that in the context of a predatory superpower we often allowed them to compromise the compassionate religion by equivocating on suicide killings, terrorist attacks on civilians, widespread misogyny, and internal takfirism (excommunication). Now that coronavirus has presented itself as predator that even attacks the superpowers, the exhortations of the charlatans to be patient, to withstand the test, to prohibit women, to defy governments, to expose yourselves and others to danger, and to disregard science and medicine carries less ambiguity. It is evil.

The Sunnah — Our Gift to the World

The charlatans have proven unhelpful, not only to Muslims, but also to the world. The world comes knocking on our door today to alert us to what we as Muslims have been doing forever. But we have been taught to do it in imitation, not out of understanding the real intents as taught by the Prophet (s): today the world practices intermittent fasting as a great health intervention and secular scientists have done the science on it; today the world prescribes the black seeds — after doing the science on it — as an antidote to digestive and respiratory problems and we learn these benefits from them while having the prescription from the prophetic tradition; and today we are amazed at the importance of hand washing in preventing disease, while ritually doing it forever.

A Test from God — Confronting Our Mortality

A test from God is not a punishment from God. A test is not to determine whether you are sinful or pure. That is divinely known already. A test is not about how stoically you suffer or how bravely you die. A test from God is to strengthen your sense of mortality, to build your resilience, to encourage self-reform, and to then live better! A test from God is to teach you responses to calamities and challenges: you consume less to mitigate climate change; you find cures and vaccines for diseases and illnesses; and you change lifestyles.

The post CORONAVIRUS — A CRISIS THAT REVEALS MUSLIM FAULTLINES: The Mainstream Adapt, The Charlatans Panic. appeared first on World for All.

High on the Swiss Alps, in the cold and fog, the World for All Foundation and the Carter Center convened clergy and community leaders from countries in Europe and North Africa to discuss a response to islamophobia and extremism. Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool told the gathering:

“The year 2017 is a crucial one for the world. In the wake of Brexit and Trump, and with the prospect of le Pen in France, Wilders in Holland, Alternatif in Germany and similar movements rising globally, we are now explicitly in the Age of Extremisms! Informal, marginalized extremism in the name of Islam that is spawning unspeakable horror is now confronting formal, mainstreamed extremism in the West with an even greater capacity for devastation. It has the capacity to command armies, make anti-human laws, and legalize discrimination because it runs governments. Our task as the middle-ground is even more urgent to confront all extremisms, fight all discrimination and protect all human dignity!”

January 24, 2017

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“The Call of Islam was an organisation that was militant but not violent; radical but not fundamentalist; and revolutionary but not extreme.” In the nuances of each of these binaries lie the possibility for Muslim organisations across the world who live under occupation, despotism, military rule, extremism and other forms of rule that inhibit their dignity and distort their faith. Such regimes require radical and revolutionary change and need to be confronted militantly. But in the latter parts of these binaries often lie the seeds of the undoing of Muslim organisations; the penchant for violence, fundamentalism and extremism!” Ebrahim Rasool

South Africa is going through a fairly traumatic time. The vacuum in leadership opens the possibility for all kinds of forces to try and occupy the leadership terrain and exploit the space for protest and struggle. As we witness the rise of an iconoclastic protest group -disrupting education, burning art and suggesting a sell out by people like Nelson Mandela — we are reminded by a formulation by Ebrahim Rasool, drawn from lessons from the anti-apartheid struggle. He wrote it in 2014 in the forward to Adli Jacob’s biography of the Call of Islam. It may well be relevant for those engaged in legitimate struggle and protest in South Africa today.

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30 January 2015

Khutba Delivered at Claremont Main Rd Mosque

Cape Town, South Africa

It was in the 9th year of the Islamic calendar, 9 years after the Hijra, 9 years after the strategic retreat from Mecca to Medina, that God revealed the chapter of the Quran, Surah Hujurat or the inner apartments. It was called the inner apartments, literally because it referred to the privacy and the sanctuary of the Prophet Muhammad’s abode and cautioned those who sought his attention by shouting from outside. But it was also called the inner apartments since it sought to fortify the inner Muslim character that would establish the inner template of manners, behaviour and disposition in order to establish the outer protocols and attitudes towards the rest of humanity and creation.

It is important to note the time of its revelation because this year was also called the Year of Deputations — the year in which the Prophet Muhammad and the early Muslims were receiving delegations from all over the known world, from every nation, tribe, culture and faith, who began to look at the emergent community of Medina, not as a passing phenomenon, but as a community growing in influence and power. This was also a time when the Muslim community could refocus its attention from the tasks of internal consolidation of the community and withstanding the external threat of war.

It was, therefore, a time in which a community, till now largely under siege, was being prepared to countenance those who are different and was being prepared to coexist in the

world of different faiths, cultures and political persuasions. So the Quran, therefore, addresses the nascent Muslim community on issues ranging from managing suspicion to facilitating reconciliation, from avoiding defamation to eschewing rumour-mongering, and from discerning superficial faith and the general judgement of external appearance.

Central to the thesis of this chapter is verse 13 in which the essential unity of humankind is established, the purpose of human diversity is outlined, and righteous conduct is affirmed as the only marker of distinction between people. The verse reads:

“Oh people! We have created you from a single pair of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know one another and not that you may despise each other. Truly, the most honoured of you in the sight of God is the one who is most righteous. And God has full knowledge and is acquainted with all that you do.”

I call to mind this chapter on the eve of World Interfaith Harmony Week, proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly for the 1st week of February since 2010. It is a week dedicated to mutual understanding and dialogue among different faith and religious communities to enhance cooperation, peace and harmony among the peoples of the world. However, as we proceed next week to observe world interfaith harmony week, we do so in the deathly shadow of events in the preceding month of January 2015 around the calculated assassinations at Charlie Hebdo and the disrespectful, if not defamatory, cartoons which occasioned the carnage. Extremists, both those who pulled the triggers and those who drew the cartoons, have shown that they have infinitely greater capacities to shape the relationships among different and diverse groups of people, than the millions who, every day in their ordinary lives, go about living out the normative values of their faiths.

World Interfaith Harmony Week 2015 may well prove the point made by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon in support of this initiative when he said that the week should enable the moderate majority to be empowered to stand up against the forces of extremism. The Secretary-General, however, amplifies through his invocation of “moderates”, the core weakness of the middle ground: their lack of credibility to defend what they stand for — in this case their reverence for the Prophet Muhammad — because they are perceived to be

moderate to the point of being toothless poodles of the West. The Secretary-General also, seems limited in his definition of extremism. For him extremists are religious but are not necessarily the secularists who set out to transgress religious sensitivities; extremists are the informal warriors but are not necessarily the militarists who shape or execute the foreign policy of the superpowers.

Both of these misperceptions would need to be corrected if we are indeed to achieve the objectives of co-operation, peace and harmony among the diverse peoples of the world. The normative values of Surah Hujurat may have to be asserted, not moderately, but militantly. This surah (chapter) is an advance even on Surah Mumtahana (the woman to be examined) revealed in the 8th year after hijra. That chapter conditionally sets out the basis for coexistence of Muslims within a multi-faith and multicultural society. The conditions are simple: do not fight us for faith and do not drive us from our homes, and in return we will owe you the obligation of kindness and justice. The Quran says:

“God forbids you not with regard to those who do not fight you for your faith nor drive you from your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them. God loves those who are just.”

Intellectually and theologically the middle ground must assert that this chapter (Mumtahana) is even an advance on the Meccan chapter called Kafirun, or those would reject faith, which ends with the exhortation to tolerance, by saying:

“To you your religion, and to me mine.”

These normative values of faith must be vigorously defended and asserted in the face of both strains within orthodoxy and the general thrust of fundamentalism which elevate injunctions in a context of war, and against political treason, like the one not to take the Jews and the Christians as your friends and allies, to the eternal and universal normative value of perpetual enmity. Today, even on mainstream South African radio stations, some forbid Muslims from attending the funerals of their Christian parents, family, friends and

colleagues, and forbid even the saying of a prayer for their forgiveness. These soulless, and seemingly small, misrepresentations of our normative values are the stepping-stones for our silence and impotence in the face of the bigger atrocities done in our name.

In explaining the reasoning behind the victory of David over Goliath, the Quran says:

“And had not God checked one set of people by means of another, the Earth would indeed be full of mischief.”

God’s methodology to defeat mischief is to inspire good people to make common cause and to be courageous. This is our purpose next week when good people must come together to defend faith itself by defending the normative values of their faiths. If we do not do so, God provides us with a chilling warning in the Quran:

“Had not God checked one set of people by means of another, there would surely have been the destruction of monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques, places in which the name of God is remembered profusely. God will certainly aid those who aid the cause of God.”

Very clearly, we do not simply defend what is ours, what is Islamic, but we defend all that resonates the presence of God. The world has never been more in need of a militant middle ground. It is a middle ground that needs to stand up and check the forces of cynicism that disparage faith, erode cultures and traditions and mock those who are different and seemingly backward. We must not aid cynicism by defending superstition, believing without reason, and confirming our penchant for violence by being hostile and violent in our methodology. But we must engage them intellectually, by postulating the danger of a world without anchors in values and without accountability to a transcendent being. As Vaclav Havel once said: if we live in a world without a meta-narrative we may be in danger of committing mega-suicide.

But we must also have the courage to re-appropriate and reclaim our faith and theology from our own extremists who do what they do in our name and take our silence as their mandate. We must deny them this mandate. We must assert the fundamental normative values of faith. It is not enough to go about our ordinary lives doing the ordinary things that live out our faith. It is important that we continue our simple acts of co-existence, our embrace of difference, and our beautiful addition to the mosaic of our nations and the world. Ultimately, this will defeat the forces of extremism.

But in the short term we must confront the seemingly innocent misunderstanding and misrepresentation of our faith and theology espoused in the growing dial a fatwa programs on radio and TV, just as we must confront the global outrages that define us when hostages are taken in a coffee shop in Australia, when the Canadian Parliament becomes a battlefield, when 200 girls disappear in Nigeria, when Pakistani schoolgirls are massacred, when journalists are beheaded and when Jews are killed in the market, and defending the honour of the Prophet constitutes the greatest transgression and violation of his sunnah. There is no cause that justifies such outrages, because, even as Allah exhorts us to justice, Allah places the limitations on our methodologies: “…and let not the hatred of a people to you cause you to depart from justice. Be just always!”

We must make common cause as a middle ground across many differences. We may not pray like they pray, eat what they eat, dress like they dress or look like the look, but in defense of decency and human values we must move from competitive faith to co-operative faith, and comparative faith to collaborative faith. We must do this in defense of our own normative values, but also in defense of faith itself.

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