The Muslim world needs to end its internal conflicts and focus on economic
development for the more than 600 million Muslims trying to escape poverty,
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Wednesday.

In his opening remarks at an international Islamic conference on peace and
conflict prevention here, the President said many conflicts in the world
today pit Muslims against each other despite the fact that Islam teaches
love, compassion and tolerance.

Yudhoyono told the audience that conflict had prevented many Muslims from
attaining economic empowerment.

“Almost 40 percent of the ummah (Muslim community) lives below the poverty
line. Untold millions of Muslims live on less than US$1 a day. We can no
longer tolerate a situation in which the vast majority of Muslims languish
in poverty,” Yudhoyono told some 300 Muslim scholars from across the world.

Muslims account for more than 20 percent of the world’s population, some 1.5
billion people supplying 70 percent of the world’s energy and 40 percent of
the raw materials used by global industries for consumer products.

“If we unite, these numbers can translate into greater capacity for doing
good, for promoting trade and investment and for fostering peace among
ourselves and with the rest of the world,” said Yudhoyono, the president of
a predominantly Muslim country struggling with poverty.

The three-day event, organized by Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the country’s
largest Islamic organization, as well as by Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry, is
themed “Upholding Islam as Rahmatan Lil Alamin (a Blessing for the
Universe): Peace Building and Conflict Prevention in the Muslim World”. The
conference aims to find solutions to internecine Muslim conflicts.

NU chairman Hasyim Muzadi spoke on the underdevelopment faced by the Muslim
world, highlighting the fact that almost all major conflicts in the world
occurred in Muslim states such as Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan.

Hasyim asked Muslims to identify their key internal problems and to
cooperate in solving them by practicing what they preached.

“Preaching about zakat (voluntary alms) and infaq (mandatory alms), for
instance, must be followed by real actions. Those that are blessed with
financial and economic resources can and must play a role in alleviating the
poverty faced by our brothers and sisters,” Hasyim said.

Yudhoyono and Hasyim said sect and nationality should not prevent ulema and
scholars from playing a role in ending conflict and promoting peace.

“Bring the message of peace beyond the limits of your own communities,
beyond the edges of your nations to a world that thirsts for the cessation
of conflict and in so doing become Ulama sans frontieres (ulema without
frontiers),” Yudhoyono told the forum.

In a speech read by his representative Zahidul Haque, United Nations
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon underscored the key role of religious leaders
in helping the UN resolve and prevent conflict.

ISTANBUL, July 30 — Turkey’s highest court Wednesday decided not to outlaw the nation’s ruling party, dealing a setback to the top prosecutor and other members of its secular establishment, who have accused the Justice and Development Party of unlawfully injecting Islam into policymaking.

The court slashed the party’s state funding in half for one year and its chairman said it found credible evidence that party leaders had undermined secularism. Court chairman Hasim Kilic called the outcome of the case “a warning.”

The decision will allow the Justice and Development Party and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to remain in power. The party has gained popularity because of Turkey’s growing economy and because of policies designed to win Turkish membership in the European Union.

Six of the court’s 11 judges voted to outlaw the party, Kilic said, falling one vote short of a majority of seven needed in the case. Four other judges agreed with the prosecutor’s contention that the party has undermined Turkey’s constitutionally sanctioned secularism, but decided that cutting its funding was an adequate sanction.

Party supporters labeled the case an attempted “judicial coup” and accused secular leaders of resorting to judicial maneuvers to attempt to broaden political power they were unable to attain at the ballot box. Justice and Development won 47 percent of the vote in elections last year.

Turkish political parties have been banned by the judiciary in the past, but this case marked the first time a popular ruling party faced the prospect of being disbanded.

Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, the country’s top prosecutor, filed a lengthy complaint this spring against the party, alleging that its leaders were steering the country toward conservative Islamic values, in violation of the country’s secular principles.

The case relied heavily on the party’s attempt to repeal a policy that bans women from wearing head scarves at universities and other public buildings. Some secularists said they suspected it was a first step in a broad campaign to expand the influence of Islam in Turkey’s government, a charge party leaders rejected.

The case brought to the forefront an intense divide among Turks over religion in their society. As Turkey has sought to join the European Union in recent years, the role of Islam in Turkish life and politics has been widely scrutinized at home and abroad.

Scores of police officers guarded the constitutional building in Ankara, the capital, after opening arguments started Monday morning, amid security concerns raised by high-profile attacks in Turkey in recent weeks.

Gunmen attacked a police outpost guarding the U.S. consulate in Istanbul on July 9, resulting in a gun battle that left three guards and three assailants dead. Officials said al-Qaeda extremists carried out the attack.

On Sunday, two bombs killed 17 people and wounded nearly 150 in a working-class neighborhood in the outskirts of Istanbul. Turkey’s state news agency reported Wednesday that nine people have been detained in connection with the bombings, but provided few details.

THE UK’s first insurance company which complies with the principles of the Muslim faith has been launched.

Salaam Halal insurance is offering motor insurance policies that are in line with Islam’s Sharia law.

Unlike conventional insurance policies, where the risk is shifted from the policyholder to the insurance company, Salaam Halal will use a structure known as Takaful which spreads the risk between all policyholders.

People taking out one of the policies will pay contributions into a pool, with the money then put into Sharia-complaint investments, avoiding products that pay interest and companies that are involved in alcohol.

The pool of funds is used to pay any claims that arise, and at the end of the year if the central pool is over funded, the excess will be distributed back to policyholders through a participation discount on their next premium.

Policies can be taken out online at the website www.salaaminsurance.com or by calling 0800 980 2454.

[First published in Times Online, UK July 25, 2008]

A unique and groundbreaking "1000 Sisters' voices" survey carried out by Ummah Foods, a "new generation" British Muslim food company, and by SISTERS, the inspirational new magazine for Muslim women, has found that, while an overwhelming majority view Islam as their guide to life, read the Qur'an and observe hijab, they also shop at high street stores, go out to eat and travel regularly. The picture that emerges is one of a population balancing the demands of their faith with the opportunities afforded by life in the UK.

Khalid Sharif, founder of Ummah Foods, and Na'ima B. Robert, editor of SISTERS Magazine, began asking some interesting questions about the lives of Muslim women in the UK so they could improve their products for them. The result has been a groundbreaking look at the thoughts, opinions and ideas of Muslim women in the UK. The survey, which is the largest ever, gathered respondents from all walks of life, from around the UK, all eager to give their views on issues as diverse as their relationship with Islam, their opinions of hijab, halal shopping, Internet use, entrepreneurship and of course Muslim men and marriage.

One of the most surprising findings was that British Muslim women, married and unmarried, are still romantics at heart.

Finding a soul mate and settling down in a happy family environment were top of the women's list with 96 per cent of women saying that this is what marriage meant to them. But they were also keen to find ways of successfully combining work with family life.

As in all communities everywhere, the respondents believed that "good men are hard to find". Education, personality and a high affinity with the principles of Islam were top of most lists.

Also of interest to Muslim men is the fact that, while character and Islamic knowledge come top of the Muslim woman's wish list, racial background is ranked as one of the least important aspects.

Outside of family life, finding ways of helping to resolve the challenges facing the British Muslim Community far outweighed thoughts or concerns about global issues with 70 per cent opting for issues in the UK with the remaining looking to Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

One of the more interesting aspects of the survey was that Muslim women seem to have turned their backs on the major supermarket chains when it comes to halal food shopping with only 10 per cent choosing the supermarkets.

Khalid Sharif, Managing Director of Ummah Foods commented: "The major food retailers have not yet grasped how to attract Muslim shoppers. One of our key objectives at Ummah is to help the Supermarkets develop and offer products that meet the ethical codes that most Muslims want to abide by. We are trying hard to encourage the major chains to think more creatively about how best to tap into this important market and to encourage more Muslim women into their stores."

He added "We asked Muslim women in the UK what they would like us to do next, and the unanimous call was for premium chocolates. We listened carefully to their suggestions, and are now very pleased to announce the launch of five new products in the Ummah Foods Premium Halal Chocolate range"

Na'ima B. Robert, editor of SISTERS magazine, said, "As the UK's first magazine for Muslim women, we respond to how Muslim women in the UK today define themselves. In this survey, we wanted to hear their thoughts, ideas and concerns – so that we may better address these in our magazine."

She added "SISTERS aims to satisfy the Muslim woman's varied needs – spiritually, intellectually, emotionally and practically, in a beautiful, glossy package. It's our very own 'halal Glamour'!"

"All of us at SISTERS and at Ummah Foods are delighted with the responses we have received so far. We have managed to get so much interesting information and the whole process has been a real eye-opener for us, as businesses and as part of the British Muslim community. We are definitely looking forward to doing another one next year!"

By Deborah Horan
First published in Chicago Tribune July 25, 2008

On any other day, Sobia Ahmed would opt to forgo many of the snacks on offer at Six Flags Great America in Gurnee. To perform the Islamic prayers she recites five times a day, she likely would slip onto a secluded path at the amusement park or look for solace under a shady tree for a few furtive minutes.

But this Saturday Ahmed and her family will eat and pray at their leisure in the park with hundreds of other Muslims from the Chicago area who plan to visit the sprawling entertainment center for a day catered especially to them.

For the fourth time since 2004, Six Flags in Gurnee is sponsoring Muslim Day, bringing in outside caterers to provide halal food and turning an amphitheater into a makeshift mosque to accommodate Muslims who observe dietary laws and strict prayer schedules. Muslims who plan to go say they appreciate the sense of community the event creates as well as the opportunity to talk about Islam with curious non-Muslims at the park.

"If you go on regular days, it's kind of tough to find a place to pray," said Ahmed, a stay-at-home mom from Bolingbrook who has attended previous Muslim Days at Six Flags with her husband and five children. "Usually we can't eat the food, but now we can."

Started in New Jersey by an interethnic Muslim organization called the Islamic Circle of North America, Muslim Day at Six Flags has grown from a one-time gig focusing on youth-which took place a few days before the Sept. 11, 2001, tragedy-into a popular annual family event at several of the company's theme parks, Muslim organizers and park representatives said.

One of the New Jersey organizers died in the World Trade Center, which stalled efforts to organize a Muslim Day in 2002, according to Raza Farrukh, the Islamic group's New Jersey representative. Today the New Jersey event is so big that the organizers typically buy a day at the park for Muslims only. There are also special days for Muslims at parks around Atlanta, Boston and Los Angeles, in addition to Chicago, organizers said.

In Gurnee, the park will remain open to all, but the day has steadily attracted more and more Muslims. According to park officials, 345 Muslims attended the first year; nearly 1,400 came in 2006. The event was canceled for logistical reasons last year. This year, organizers say they hope to attract as many as 4,000, though park officials expect about 1,200.

"The kids love it and adults also," said Zulfiqar Khan, a Pakistani immigrant living in Plainfield who is coordinating this year's event. "We can socialize, have some ethnic food, just create a sense of community."

Six Flags also has created special events for Catholics, Baptists and Methodists, park officials said, and Episcopalians have booked the amphitheater for prayer services. Traditional Polish dancers joined in the park's opening ceremonies during a recent Polish Day, and last week the park supplied American Sign Language interpreters during a "hard-of-hearing-awareness day."

For the Muslims' prayer needs, the park chose an amphitheater near the restrooms so worshipers can perform ablutions beforehand. Two outside caterers will provide food that complies with Islamic standards of preparation.

By Muhammad Cohen
First published in Guardian on Thursday July 24 2008

Barack Obama isn't the only one with a Muslim problem. America has one, too. Instead of ineffective denials, Obama should meet his Muslim problem and America's head on.

The New Yorker cover, depicting the Illinois senator in Muslim garb with a portrait of Osama bin Laden over the mantle and an American flag burning in the fireplace, was satire to some, the secret truth to others. Polling indicates 10% of Americans believe that Obama is a Muslim. This same 10% probably also blame Obama for the preaching of his Christian minister Jeremiah Wright, suggesting that holding conflicting ideas in your head is not necessarily a sign of intelligence.

Rather than ignore or deny the false rumours that he's a Muslim, Barack Hussein Obama should embrace his Muslim heritage (as this convert does) and take the opportunity to educate the American public about everyone's shared Islamic inheritance. Obama's full-frontal assault on American racism as a presidential candidate should include a plank against religious intolerance. He owes that much to his Kenyan father and six million Muslim Americans anxious to support his candidacy and bury the prejudice we've suffered since the September 11 attacks nearly seven years ago.

Taking offence that Obama is mistakenly identified as a Muslim aligns his campaign with bigots that treat "Muslim" as a slur and believe a Muslim can't be president of the United States. It wasn't very long ago that most Americans believed that a woman or a black person couldn't be president of the US either. But thinking has evolved, at least among the majority of Americans. Obama can inspire a similar evolution regarding Muslims.

When Americans think about Islam now, they focus on the September 11 attacks. But the attackers don't represent the true face of Islam any more than paedophilic clergy represent true Christianity. There is more to Islam than suicide bombers. Islam has provided the bedrocks of our western civilisation, from preserving the writings of the ancient Greeks to laying the scientific foundations for modern surgery and the microchip. What we call western values were passed down to us through Islamic societies that were the most advanced on earth by every measure a thousand years ago.

When we do math today, we use Arabic numbers, not Roman numerals, employing algebra and algorithms named for their Islamic inventors. When we look to the heavens we see celestial bodies, such as Aldebaran and Betelgeuse, bearing Arabic names. Those discoveries, along with advances in architecture, poetry and leadership, weren't products of Islam alone, but of diverse, tolerant societies where Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists lived peacefully under Muslim rulers who built grand libraries and supported inquiry, believing that knowing the world was the best way to know the one God all monotheists share. In that cauldron of competing ideas, great things emerged.

America has prospered using that same formula, taking people and ideas from all parts of our population and all corners of the world to create a whole greater than the sum of our parts. It's past time for America to extend that winning formula to the Muslims in our midst. People who say that Muslims don't belong in America, shouldn't hold public office and don't worship the same deity in the US motto "In God we trust," share more in common with the hate merchants behind the 9/11 attacks than they do with America's founders.

Our founders were overwhelmingly white, male and Christian, but theirs was a vision of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all, even if they didn't extend those "inalienable rights" to women, blacks or Native Americans. The drafters of the Declaration of Independence, who wrote so pointedly and precisely, were very clear on where those inalienable rights came from – the Creator. They didn't say Jesus Christ or Jehovah or Allah. These learned Christians certainly knew of other religions. 1776 was nearly two centuries after Shakespeare wrote Othello and the Merchant of Venice. Many colonists came to America to escape religious bigotry, and they consciously chose not to import that blight to their New World. They did not make America a Christian nation with a state church like England, but a secular nation with all free to worship as they choose. Our founders' choice means that there is nothing incompatible about being a Muslim and an American.

Obama's father was a Muslim from Kenya, but the senator for Illinois has chosen to worship as a Christian. He's also made a far more important choice, a choice that six million Muslims in this country and tens of millions of immigrants have made over the decades. We've all chosen to live our lives as Americans, and that, not our religious faith, is what really matters when it comes to building an inclusive, tolerant society, one nation under God with liberty and justice for all.

Obama can help himself by delivering that message and helping to bring Muslim Americans into the US mainstream, instead of helping the bigots keep us outside. If he succeeds, perhaps we can all join hands to say: "Allah bless America."

The trappings of a typical high school prom were all there: the strobe lights, the garlands, the crepe pineapple centerpieces and even a tiara for the queen. In fact, Fatima Haque's prom tonight had practically everything one might expect on one of a teenage girl's most important nights. Except boys.

Ms. Haque and her friends may have helped initiate a new American ritual: the all-girl Muslim prom. It is a spirited response to religious and cultural beliefs that forbid dating, dancing with or touching boys or appearing without a hijab, the Islamic head scarf. While Ms. Haque and her Muslim friends do most things other teenagers do – shopping for shoes at Macy's, watching ''The Matrix Reloaded'' at the mall or ordering Jumbo Jack burgers and curly fries at Jack in the Box – an essential ingredient of the American prom, boys, is off limits. So they decided to do something about it.

''A lot of Muslim girls don't go to prom,'' said Ms. Haque, 18, who removed her hijab and shawl at the prom to reveal an ethereal silvery gown. ''So while the other girls are getting ready for their prom, the Muslim girls are getting ready for our prom, so we won't feel left out.''

The rented room at a community center here was filled with the sounds of the rapper 50 Cent, Arabic pop music, Britney Spears and about two dozen girls, including some non-Muslim friends. But when the sun went down, the music stopped temporarily, the silken gowns disappeared beneath full-length robes, and the Muslims in the room faced toward Mecca to pray. Then it was time for spaghetti and lasagna.

It is perhaps a new version of having it all: embracing the American prom culture of high heels, mascara and adrenaline while being true to a Muslim identity.

''These young women are being very creative, finding a way to continue being Muslim in the American context,'' said Jane I. Smith, a professor of Islamic studies at the Hartford Seminary in Connecticut. ''Before, young Muslims may have stuck with the traditions of their parents or rejected them totally to become completely Americanized. Now, they're blending them.''

Non-Muslim students at San Jose High Academy, where Ms. Haque is president of the student body, went to the school's coed prom last month – renting cars or limousines, dining at the Sheraton, going to breakfast at Denny's and, for some, drinking. Ms. Haque, meanwhile, was on her turquoise cellphone with the smiley faces organizing the prom. She posted an announcement on Bay Area Muslim Youth, a Yahoo news group scanned by young people throughout the San Francisco Bay area, home to one of the country's largest and most active Muslim communities.

''We got so close, we wanted to hang,'' said Fatin Alhadi, 17, a friend, explaining the farewell-to-high-school celebration, which involved cooking, shopping and decorating the room, rented with a loan from Ms. Haque's parents. ''It's an excuse to dress and put makeup on. Everyone has so much fun at the prom.''

The sense of anticipation was palpable at Ms. Haque's house this afternoon, including an occasional ''Relax, mom!'' For Ms. Haque and her friends, the Muslim prom – like any prom — meant getting your eyebrows shaped at the last minute and ransacking mother's jewelry box. It was a time to forget about the clock, to look in the mirror and see a glamorous woman instead of a teenager. To be radiant.

Ms. Haque and her Muslim girlfriends dwell in a world of exquisite subtlety in which modesty is the underlying principle. Though she wears a hijab, Ms. Alhadi recently dyed her black hair auburn. ''Everyone asks me why, because nobody sees it,'' she said. ''But I like to look at myself.''

Ms. Haque, who will attend the University of California at Berkeley in the fall, is one of a growing number of young Muslim women who have adopted the covering their mothers rejected. Islamic dress, worn after puberty, often accompanies a commitment not to date or to engage in activities where genders intermingle.

Her parents immigrated from Pakistan, and her mother, Shazia, who has a master's degree in economics, does not wear the hijab.

Ms. Haque's decision to cover herself, which she made in her freshman year, was nuanced and thoughtful.

''I noticed a big difference in the way guys talked,'' she said. ''They were afraid. I guess they had more respect. You walked down the street and you didn't feel guys staring at you. You felt a lot more confident.'' Her parents were surprised but said it was her decision.

Ms. Haque faced some taunting after the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. ''They call you terrorist, or rag head because high school students are immature,'' she said.

But she and her friends say Muslim boys, who are not distinguished by their dress, may have a tougher time in American society.

''The scarf draws the line,'' said Ms. Alhadi, the daughter of a Singaporean mother and Indonesian father. ''It's already a shield. Without it everything comes to you and you have to fight it yourself.''

Ms. Haque is enrolled in the academically elite International Baccalaureate program at San Jose High Academy, a public school where, as her friend Morgan Parker, 17, put it, ''the jocks are the nerds.''

But the social pressures on Muslims, especially in less-cloistered settings, can be intense.

''I felt left out, big time,'' said Saira Lara, 17, a senior at Gunn High School in Palo Alto, of her school's prom. But she gets a vicarious taste of dating by talking with her non-Muslim friends.

''The drama that goes on!'' Ms. Lara said, looking dazzling at the Muslim prom in a flowing maroon gown. ''The Valentine's Day without a phone call or a box of chocolates!''

Imran Khan, 17, a senior at Los Altos High School, admitted that his school's prom was not easy.

''When I told my friends I wasn't going, they all said, 'Are you crazy?' '' he said in a telephone interview. ''Prom is a you-have-to-go kind of thing. Obviously if all your friends are going and you're not, you're going to feel something. That day I was, 'Oh man, my friends are having fun and I'm not.' But I don't regret not going.''

Most of Mr. Khan's school friends are not Muslim, and his Muslim friends are scattered across the Bay area.

''A lot of times it's difficult,'' he said. ''We guys blend in so you can't tell we're Muslim. We're not supposed to touch the opposite gender. My friends who are girls understand, but when other girls want to hug you or shake your hand, it's hard. I don't want them to think I'm a jerk or something.''

Adeel Iqbal, 18, a senior at Bellarmine College Preparatory, a boys' Catholic school in San Jose, went stag to his coed senior prom. Mr. Iqbal decided to go in his official capacity as student body president as well as a representative of his Muslim beliefs.

''Every day we're bombarded with images of sex and partying and getting drunk, in music and on TV, so of course there's a curiosity,'' he said. ''When you see your own peers engaging in these activities, it's kind of weird. It takes a lot of strength to not participate. But that's how I've been raised. When your peers see you're different in a positive way, they respect it.''

Nearly all parents of adolescents worry about the pressures of sex, drugs and alcohol, but the anxiety is especially acute in Muslim families who strictly adhere to traditional Islamic dress and gender separation. Many Muslim parents disapprove of what they see as an excessively secularized and liberalized American culture, and are deeply concerned that young Muslims, especially girls, not be put in compromising situations.

Ms. Haque's father, Faisal, a design engineer at Cisco Systems, said that the pressure to conform was ''very significant.'' It is the subject of frequent family discussions.

''It's difficult at best,'' Mr. Haque said. ''It takes a lot of self-control. I have a lot of respect for these kids.''

The Haques supported their daughter's decision to organize the Muslim prom. ''You have to live in this country,'' Mr. Haque said. ''In order to function, the children have to adapt. Prom is a rite of passage. You don't want them to feel like they don't belong.''

Ms. Haque would like the Muslim prom to become an annual event. ''My goal is an elegant ballroom with a three-course dinner- no paper plates – women waiters and a hundred girls,'' she said.

Tonight, the prom room was filled with promise as the young women whirled around the dance floor, strobe lights blinking. ''Show off whatever you've got!'' Ms. Lara exhorted the throng, sounding like a D.J. ''Come on, guys. This is the most magical night of your life!''

15 July 2008

WITH Muhammad being classified as the most popular first name chosen for newborns in Brussels, the EU capital was recently named "one of the most Muslim cities in the Western world", according to political scientist Corinne Torrekens.

The city's great mosque – the Islamic and Cultural Centre of Belgium – is where this community's growth has been felt most remarkably. While in the 1970s, soon after the mosque's foundation, only two lines of the huge prayer hall were filled in the best cases, the mosque today has to be widened with tents that are pitched around the building in peak seasons like Ramadan and the two Muslim festivities. The number of people who attended last Ramadan's night prayers is estimated at 7,000.

But with its high crime-rates, this large community is still at an immature stage, if not heading towards a social failure. While Muslims represent between 4 and 5 per cent of Belgium's entire population, 35 per cent of the incarcerated population is of Muslim descent.

People tend to relate this problem to the community's economic status. Muslims belong to socially unfavoured classes, it is often claimed.

True. Most Muslims living in Belgium stem from immigrants who, in the golden sixties, soon after World War II, entered Belgium as labour workers, especially in the coal industry. Today, as the second and even third generations belong to the active population, Muslims overwhelmingly still live in the same municipal districts where their forefathers initially settled, i.e. in the centre of Brussels. And economically, they often still lag behind.

The historical record shows that, as immigrants settled in affordable areas, upper classes as well as institutions like banks and post-offices gradually abandoned these districts, leaving behind what is often called "ghettos".

But the question that arises is: what prevents Muslims from moving into a social ascension?

As a Muslim-born and raised in Brussels, I do not believe that any economic factor prevents Muslims from moving upwards. Belgium provides a sound social security to its entire population. Free (and compulsory) education, children money, health insurance, and unemployment money are the basic security items to which all Belgians have right, regardless of their origins.

What about inverting the logic: Could it be that, as a consequence to their social security, youth don't feel obliged to pursue their higher education?

I'd suggest seeking the root of challenges faced by the youth in the wide gap that exists between their world at home and their daily life at school.

In front of what seems to be a conflict between a call for preserving their cultural and/or religious identities on the one hand, and a call for integration on the other, the majority of Muslims have tended towards one pole. Only a tiny few have succeeded in finding the right balance where they preserve their identities while living in conformity with the Belgian environment.

There is no doubt that harmonising the conflict needs a complementary effort from both sides.

An integration policy that denies people their identities is surely not a viable solution. Banning the Muslim headscarf, for instance, as the majority of schools do as part of banning the wear of religious signs, is seen by Muslim girls as a breach into their very identity. It even moves those Muslims who are not practicing their religion. "I have no intention to wear the headscarf," a female restaurant keeper of Moroccan origin once told me, "But as soon as I see someone prevented from wearing it, I want to revolt."

On the other hand, Muslims all too often wrongly believe that their religion interferes with modernity and blocks them from adjusting to the Belgian society. There was recently a time when it became fashion among secondary school students to boycott the biology course under the pretext that it teaches Darwinism, the theory of evolution.

Many Muslims also mistakenly assume that the jobs available in Belgium are illicit sources of income, and, as a consequence, opt for unemployment money, forgetting that Islam honours productive work.

Such a self-imposed 'ghettoisation' is not a solution, and Islam stands far from endorsing it. Rather, the answer is 'participation', as Dr Ataullah Siddiqui of the Islamic Foundation in Leicester, United Kingdom, believes. And that means thinking this way: "I am a Muslim; and I am a Belgian. I have a religious duty to see this whole country as my own – including its pain and suffering; and I want to be proud of it." By believing so, Dr Siddiqui says, one "fulfills a religious duty, as well as a social duty."

And because a people is judged, not by how much they took, but by how much they gave, a "participatory identity" would be the honourable way for Muslims.

Only when reaching this stage of self-respect will this community be able to get its voice heard, with which they can, through peaceful means, defend Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), not least against the offensive cartoons that some European newspapers recently published. That would be the least they could do to demonstrate a serious commitment towards the Prophet whom they love most.

Asma Hanif is a Brussels-based Arab writer

[First published in Khaleej Times : OPINION]

The 32-year-old woman, known as Faiza M, has lived in France since 2000 with her husband – a French national – and their three French-born children.

Social services reports said the burqa-wearing Faiza M lived in "total submission to her male relatives".

Faiza M said she has never challenged the fundamental values of France.

Her initial application for French citizenship was rejected in 2005 on the grounds of "insufficient assimilation" into France.

She appealed, and late last month the Conseil d'Etat, France's highest administrative body which also acts as a high court, upheld the decision to deny her citizenship.

Ziauddin Sardar
Friday July 11, 2008

Channel 4's documentary The Qur'an is not exactly my dream fulfilled, but it is head and shoulders above anything I have seen on television about Islam. If such programmes were the norm, what wonderful debates it would be possible to have.

Don't be put off by its two-hour length: it is lovingly made by Antony Thomas, who was responsible for the controversial 1980 drama Death of a Princess, and is a genuine visual feast.

Stunning desert landscapes, dazzling mosque interiors and glorious shots of illuminated texts will keep viewers glued to the screen. It oozes love, both for the craft of filmmaking and for the subject of the film.

And love is the primary theme. It actually communicates not just Muslims' love for their religion but also the warmth of love emanating from the teachings of their religion and infusing the outlook and attitudes of believers. It is a feeling so basic to Muslims, yet something I have never seen reflected on screen before.

And it seems to me that Thomas does a great deal to break down barriers to actually learning some very important facts about Islam and Muslims. He manages to convey the diversity of interpretation of Islam as a normal part of Muslim existence. There is as much cultural diversity in practice and observance within the same city – Istanbul is the example given – as there is between different countries in different parts of the world.

The programme also deals intelligently with what the text of the Qur'an says and what Muslims make of reading this text. The range of voices, outlooks, experiences reflected is genuinely broad enough to be reasonably representative of a reality that so seldom sees the light of day in media coverage. And for that reason, this programme manages to explain how inaccurate the conventional idea of Islam as a monolith actually is.

But there is more. The film succeeds in making clear how interpretations and religious orientations within Islam change over time. It shows that what is understood as age-old and authentic – by which people usually mean fundamentalism – is in fact a very modern, reactionary movement across the Muslim world.

Fundamentalism cannot simply be explained away with a shrug of, "This is Islam." It has to be interrogated as politics as much as religion. And for those who know little of what the Qur'an actually contains, there are some tremendously useful highlights of old chestnuts, such as female circumcision and delectable 72 virgins of paradise, which the programme reveals are not in the text of the Qur'an at all.

As I say, if this were the norm, I could then quibble about shortcomings. And there are quite a few. To explain the distinction between Sunni and Shia by the analogy of Protestants and Catholics is tritely familiar; it is also simplistic and far less explanatory than people think. Sunni and Shia have far more in common than do Protestants and Catholics. The basis of religious law is common to Shia and Sunni, and is mutually recognised.

Highlighting the difference between Sunni and Shia as a difference of belief in intercessors between the individual and God is also off the mark. Saint worship (the veneration of pirs) is as common among Sunni Muslims as it is among the Sufis. And the Sufis themselves are presented in a romantic way, as the solution to all the problems of Islam. In reality, the Sufi sheikhs, such as one we see in the film, can be as authoritarian and dogmatic as any Sunni or Shia cleric.

The vexed subject of women in Islam is handled by presenting a polarity. But while the fully veiled representative is clearly a thinking woman, who made her own choice, one gets no sense of how much of a minority she is in. The options and thinking of the majority of Muslim women is what the programme ought to have made visible but missed by contrasting the fully veiled woman with one who believes, as a minority do, that the veil is not required at all.

In a programme of this length, one would also expect to see the emerging school of feminist scholars, such as Asma Barlas, presenting a more enlightened interpretation.

The programme concludes with a trawl through contemporary textual examinations of the Qur'an by western scholars. It is, as Muslim interviewees state, a perfectly legitimate topic for discussion. But the section on Christoph Luxenberg's Syro-Aramaic reading of the Qur'an seems there only to add controversy.

Luxenberg himself is said to be so controversial that he cannot show his face and appears only as a shadow, something I found quite ridiculous. And, in the end, his great research only tells us that the houris of paradise are nothing but grapes, a point Martin Amis used to ridicule Muslims. This suggests that devoting the whole of the last part of the programme to Luxenberg was a serious error.

There are other levels of Muslim debate that this programme could have reflected. For example, the issue of whether sharia law, derived from the Qur'an, is fixed for all time or to be remade over and over again, according to time and circumstance – a debate more pertinent to understanding what is, and could happen, in Muslim society.

But my criticism should not deter us from appreciating that The Qur'an is light years beyond the impasse of conventional portrayals of what Islam is and what Muslims think and believe.

Much the same can be said about another Channel 4 film, Faris Kirmani's insightful Seven Wonders of the Muslim World. The "wonders" in question are great Islamic monuments such as the Sacred Mosque, in Mecca, the Dome of the Rock, in Jerusalem, the Alhambra palace, in Granada, and the Blue Mosque, in Istanbul. But they are also the ordinary people who, from different cultural and national backgrounds, travel to Mecca. The basic beliefs of Islam, and how they are expressed and lived in daily lives, are explained through their journeys. For both these film we should be truly grateful.

Ziauddin Sardar blogs every week for the Guardian on different aspects of the Qur'an

[This article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Friday July 11 2008]