Swiss businessman Guillaume Morand erected a minaret atop the chimney of his office building

In a country where failing to use official, region-specific trash bags can incur a hefty fine, defying a architectural ban on minarets is practically an act of terrorism. 

But that didn’t stop Swiss businessman Guillaume Morand, who protested last month’s constitutional amendment banning minarets by building one atop the chimney of his office in the city of Lausanne.

Morand, who owns a chain of shoe stores, told the AFP news agency that the ban is shameful, and blamed liberal parties for failing to counter what he described as right-wing scare tactics. The Swiss People’s Party, which spearheaded the initiative to ban minarets on mosques, released an aggressive campaign including posters of women in face-covering burkas and minarets shaped like rockets.

The ban was all the more scandalous, Morand said, given that Switzerland encourages Arabs to “visit the country and to spend their money here.”

Morand joins prominent Jewish leaders and the Vatican in condemning the referendum last month, when 53% of Swiss voters went to the polls to decide whether to outlaw the construction of any more minarets, although only four mosques in Switzerland have them. The amendment passed with 57% of the votes.

The Independent of London reported Monday that a group of prominent Swiss intellectuals is already preparing an initiative to overturn the ban, although many have speculated the new amendment will be struck down anyway by the European Court of Human Rights.

The Vatican backed a statement by the Swiss Bishops’ Conference calling the decision “a great challenge on the path of integration in dialogue and mutual respect.”

Moreover, the statement said, the vote “will not help the Christians oppressed and persecuted in Islamic countries, but will weaken the credibility of their commitment in these countries.”

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that European Jews have also come out strongly against the ban, pointing out that in the past, bans and regulations were imposed on synagogues as well.

“Precisely because the Jewish community has firsthand experience of discrimination, it is committed to active opposition to discrimination and to action in favor of religious freedom and peaceful relations between the religions,” two Swiss Jewish groups declared in a statement.

Swiss Jewry, the statement said, “takes seriously the fears of the population that extremist ideas could be disseminated in Switzerland. But banning minarets is no solution — it only creates in Muslims in Switzerland a sense of alienation and discrimination.”

The American Anti-Defamation League also released a statement condemning the ban as a “populist political campaign of religious intolerance.”

“This is not the first time a Swiss popular vote has been used to promote religious intolerance,” the statement read. 

“A century ago, a Swiss referendum banned Jewish ritual slaughter in an attempt to drive out its Jewish population,” it said. “We share the … concern that those who initiated the anti-minaret campaign could try to further erode religious freedom through similar means.”

The executive director of the American Jewish Committee said the group stands “firmly against these rabble-rousing politics in the name of pluralism and democracy.”

The book, edited by Michael Luongo, is the first and only gay themed American book ever to be translated into Arabic. The tour begins at Lebanon’s Beirut Book Fair where Luongo will be signing the book today at the Arab Diffusion. After Lebanon, Luongo will travel through Syria, Jordan, Palestine, and Egypt, among other countries during his six week tour.

“I’ve had conversations for the past two years about presenting this book in the Middle East, but until now, that just hasn’t happened,” said the 41 year old editor, noting he had tried to present the book at the Emirates Airlines Book Fair in the past.

“Ironically, the Arabs who were part of the Fair said yes, but the Europeans, afraid of controversy, said no. Homophobia is complicated, isn’t it?” So far in Lebanon, there has been a positive reaction, and Luongo said even a member of the Saudi government bought a copy of the book and asked about possibly presenting it in Riyadh.

The book has been a consistent gay travel best seller in the United States and was originally published by Haworth Press in 2007, until the company was bought by Routledge/Taylor & Francis in 2008.

In 2009, the Lebanese publishing company Arab Diffusion launched the book in Arabic. This itself was not without controversy as the publisher used the Arabic word “shaz” in its translation for gay, a word meaning “different” but which can also mean “pervert,” and historically used to mean gay. The lost-in-translation problem made headlines across the globe, including in the New York Post’s Page 6 gossip column. Arab Diffusion has agreed to recover the book using the more sensitive word “mithlee” a modern Arabic literal translation of homosexual.

“It was a real headache at first, and unintentional on the part of the publisher, and there were also issues of using a word more likely to escape Middle Eastern sensors since it can be interpreted in different ways,” said Luongo. “But when I talked with Middle Eastern civil rights groups they said it brought up in a very strong way, the problems they have with terminology in the Arabic language and the media coverage of gay rights issues. So that is at least a positive outcome.”

Gay Travels in a Muslim World is an edited collection, with stories by Luongo and several other authors, some of them gay Western men who have traveled in the region, and gay men from Muslim countries. Featured writers include Jeff Key, a gay U.S. soldier who had been in Iraq, and Parvez Sharma who directed the movie A Jihad for Love, a film about gays in Muslim countries. Afdhere Jama of the gay Muslim news site Huriyah, wrote the book’s foreward. Luongo writes on Afghanistan, and areas covered in the book are as diverse as suburban Los Angeles, Morocco, Egypt and Bangladesh. Luongo’s own travels have taken him through most of the Muslim world, including the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Luongo is an adjunct professor at New York University, where he teaches travel writing, and is also a freelance journalist, having written for many publications in the United States and Europe.

“I think that it is necessary to look at these issues directly, rather than second hand. The Middle East and Muslim countries are also full of things we can’t always explain from a Western perspective and even words like ‘gay’ don’t properly define what is going on.”

Luongo has been surprised by the negative, but also with the overwhelmingly positive responses he gets from the new Arabic version. “Some people thought I was crazy, when trying to get this into Arabic, but I think ultimately it creates a positive dialogue on these issues in this region, in a way meant to reach across audiences, since these are at heart travel stories about connecting to regions that as a whole Americans, gay and straight, avoid.

“That the book is available in Arabic for anyone to read within these regions is a breakthrough. A place like Lebanon is considered liberal and a no-brainer for the book, but friends have told me the Arabic version is sold now in bookstores on Mutanabi Street in Baghdad, perhaps the most dangerous place for gays in the region. That is a miracle in itself.”

Ismail Bostanov

The Deputy Chairman of the Spiritual Board of Muslims of Karachaevo-Cherkessia and Stavropol, Ismail Bostanov, was murdered in the city of Cherkessk on Sunday (September 20). Interfax quoted a law enforcement source in Karachaevo-Cherkessia as saying the attack took place when Bostanov’s was stopped at a traffic light and unidentified attackers opened fire on him. Bostanov was killed and his son was wounded and hospitalized (Interfax, September 20). According to other reports, the attack took place at a gas station (RIA Novosti, September 20). Bostanov was reportedly traveling back from a mosque in Ust-Dzheguta, south of Cherkessk, with his son when the attack occurred (www.newsru.com, September 20).

Bostanov was the Deputy Chairman of the Spiritual Board of Muslims of Karachaevo-Cherkessia and Stavropol for over 20 years and rector of the Islamic Institute in Karachaevo-Cherkessia for more than 10 years (www.gazeta.ru, RIA Novosti, September 20). In December 2006, three masked attackers broke into Bostanov’s home in Cherkessk, knifed and shot him and with firearms and beat up his wife. However, investigators at the time concluded that attack was part of an attempted robbery because the raiders stole money from Bostanov’s house (Kommersant, September 21).

Ismail Berdiev, who is the mufti of Karachaevo-Cherkessia and head of the Coordination Center of Muslims of the North Caucasus, said yesterday that he is convinced that Bostanov was killed by “Wahhabis” -the standard term used by local officials in the North Caucasus, both governmental and religious, for Islamist rebels and their sympathizers. “And who else could it have been -he was not a businessman, so that it could have entered someone’s mind to kill him for the sake of money,” Berdiev told Interfax, adding that Bostanov was known in Karachaevo-Cherkessia as “an active fighter against the spread of Wahhabi ideology.” Berdiev expressed particular indignation over the fact that Bostanov’s murder took place on the Muslim holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan (Eid Al-Fitr started Sunday, September 20, in most Arab and Muslim countries as well as in North America and Europe). “It simply beggars the imagination that someone dared to commit this heinous crime on such a holy day,” Berdiev said (www.newsru.com, September 20).

The Islamist rebel website Kavkaz Center reported Bostanov’s murder, describing him as a “murtad” (apostate) and an “evil enemy of Allah” who “carried out an anti-Islamic policy as rector of the ‘Islamic Institute.’” However, the website’s report did not include a claim of responsibility for the attack (www.kavkazcenter.com, September 20).

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov condemned Bostanov’s murder and urged all Muslims to unite against Wahhabism. “What has happened today proves again that all Muslims must act against Wahhabism,” he said in a statement. “If we want to stem this evil, the fight against it must be tough and continued.” Kadyrov said Bostanov was a deeply religious man and noted that the murder occurred during Ramadan. “He held an exceptionally principled position on reactionary Wahhabism and extremism. There were assassination attempts on his life before but they did not break his will or frighten him. In his sermons he led an uncompromising struggle against those who use Islamic slogans to commit cruel murders, terrorist acts and discredit our religion,” he continued. Kadyrov conveyed his condolences to Bostanov’s relatives (RIA Novosti, September 20).

However, Kommersant reports today that many of Bostanov’s relatives and friends do not believe that “Wahhabis” killed him. “Ismail-khadzhi was not involved in witchcraft or other activities censured by both official Islam and the Islamic underground,” the newspaper quoted one of the people gathered near the slain cleric’s home on Sunday. “As for the criticism [he] directed at the Wahhabis, all the imams rail against them, but they are not killed for it,” the relative suggested. According to Kommersant, relatives of Bostanov said he had not recently received any threats (Kommersant, September 21).

Bostanov’s murder was denounced by the leaders of Russia’s religious establishment. The Council of Muftis of the Russian Federation issued a statement saying that Bostanov’s killers were among “the violent enemies of Islam and mankind” (Interfax, September 20). Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill conveyed his condolences and support to Russia’s Muslim leaders and said Bostanov’s murder was aimed at intimidating traditional Muslim leaders but it would only strengthen their desire for peace and accord in society (www.ruvr.ru, September 21). Russia’s Chief Rabbi, Berl Lazar, expressed his condolences to Bostanov’s family and Russia’s Muslim community and said he was convinced that representatives of all of Russia’s traditional religions would unite to demand “maximally harsh measures against the bandit [rebel] underground” and their accomplices (Interfax, September 21).

Whoever murdered Ismail Bostanov and whatever their motive was, the killing took place against the backdrop of escalating insurgent violence in the North Caucasus. Two members of the anti-extremism center of Ingushetia’s interior ministry were shot to death and another wounded in an attack Sunday. Interior ministry sources said the attack took place at 12:15 p.m., local time, on the Kavkaz federal highway near the village of Gazi-Yurt in Ingushetia’s Nazran district, when unidentified gunmen fired on a car in which the ministry employees were traveling (ITAR-TASS, September 20). RIA Novosti reported today that the three Ingush policemen shot in the attack were brothers and that all of them died on the spot (RIA Novosti, September 21).

On September 19, attackers first shot up and then blew up a high-voltage electric power line on the outskirts of the Ingush city of Karabulak. On September 18, a bomb exploded in front of a freight train in Karabulak. The train was not derailed and no one was hurt in the blast. On September 17, a bomb detonated as a police patrol car was passing by in the village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya in Ingushetia’s Sunzha district. Two policemen were hurt in the blast and hospitalized. The previous day, September 16, there were reports of two powerful explosions and subsequent gunfire in Ordzhonikidzevskaya, but there were no details about how many people were wounded or killed, if any, in those incidents. Three insurgents were reportedly killed in a shootout with police in the city of Nazran on September 14 (www.kavkaz-uzel, September 19).

On September 19, an anonymous Federal Security Service (FSB) source was quoted as saying that among the three rebels killed in a security operation in Dagestan’s Kizlyar district that day was Abdullah Saadullaev, a Sharia judge aka Daud who was the “right hand” of the Dagestani rebel “emir” Umalat Magomedov. The source claimed Daud was found with letters addressed to various businessmen in Dagestan threatening them and ordering them to hand over 100,000 Euros or more (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, September 19).

Nihad Awad, national executive director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, spoke in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday about the arrests in Pakistan of five Americans

Police in Pakistan raided a house linked to an Islamic militant group Wednesday and arrested five young American Muslim men from the Washington, D.C., area, U.S. and Pakistani officials said.

One of the young men had left behind a video showing scenes of war, calling for the defense of Muslims and saying that “young Muslims have to do something,” said a person who had seen the video, describing it as a farewell of sorts.

It was the third known case since September in which Americans with ties to the Pakistan-Afghanistan region have been detained over possible terrorist connections.

The men were not accused of any crime, but their intent remained mysterious, and both U.S. and Pakistani officials emphasized that they were still gathering facts.

The five Americans, ranging in age from 19 to 25, were arrested in Sargodha, a dusty city in Punjab province, where several militant organizations with links to al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban operate, according to a senior Pakistani official and a U.S. official in Washington. Both spoke on condition of anonymity.

Three of the men arrested Wednesday are Pakistani-Americans, one is a Yemeni-American and one an Egyptian-American, the Pakistani official said. Pakistani law enforcement officers had “continuously tracked” the men from the moment they arrived Dec. 1 at Karachi international airport. All carried U.S. passports, he said.

They traveled to the city of Hyderabad, returned to Karachi, the hub of commerce in Pakistan, and then went to Lahore, the Punjab provincial capital, where they spent five days before going to Sargodha, he said.

They were arrested at a house that was occupied by Khalid Farooq, the father of one of the young men, Umer Farooq, according to an official familiar with the case. The elder Farooq is believed to have ties to Jaish-e-Muhammad, a banned Pakistani militant group, the official said.

Other Islamic militant organizations are also known to operate in Sargodha, including Sipah-e-Sahaba and a splinter group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Both are Sunni Muslim groups that have targeted minority Shiite Muslims and have also been linked to al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban.

Al-Qaeda, whose leaders are primarily Arabs, and the Pakistani Taliban, led by ethnic Pashtuns, are based in the country’s Pashtun-dominated tribal region bordering Afghanistan. They have spearheaded an insurgency that has killed and maimed thousands of people in suicide bombings and other attacks since 2007.

Many experts are concerned about cooperation between the Pakistani Taliban, al-Qaeda and militant groups based in Punjab that were once used by Pakistani security services to wage a proxy war with India in the disputed Kashmir region.

The U.S. official confirmed that the five men were the same five men from Washington’s northern Virginia suburbs whose families reported them missing last month. Also confirming that they were the missing five men was Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, a Muslim American advocacy organization to which their families turned for help.

CAIR arranged a Dec. 1 meeting for the families with Islamic leaders in northern Virginia, who then contacted the FBI, said Hooper, who declined to give further details.

Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the families of the five men were particularly disturbed to see the video message that one of them left behind.

“One person appeared in that video, and they made references to the ongoing conflict in the world, and that young Muslims have to do something,” Awad said. “The video’s about 11 minutes, and it’s like a farewell. And they did not specify what they would be doing.”

He cautioned against drawing hasty conclusions. But Awad and other Muslim leaders said the case – along with the recent recruitment of young Somali-American men in Minnesota by a violent group in Somalia – suggested that at least a small number of young American Muslims were drawn to extremist views. They pledged to start a nationwide campaign to counter such attitudes.

Hooper said neither the young men’s mosque – the ICNA Center, associated with the national Islamic Circle of North America – nor their families in Virginia supported extremism or violence.

“The Muslim community has taken the lead on this case in terms of taking it to law enforcement,” Hooper said.

Asked for assistance by the FBI, Pakistani security officers tracked the men to Farooq’s house, where they were taken into custody, U.S. and Pakistani officials said.

In addition to Umer Farooq, two of the other men – named in Pakistani press accounts as Ahmed Abdullah and Wakar Khan – were described by officials as of Pakistani descent. Another, Ramy Zamzam, is of Egyptian descent, and the fifth man, Aman Yasser, is of Yemeni descent, according to one official. Some were born abroad, but all are now U.S. citizens, U.S. officials said.

A local imam in the Washington area said that before the men left, they did not seem to have become militant.

“From all of our interviews, there was no sign they were outwardly radicalized,” said Imam Johari Abdul-Malik.

Zamzam is a dental student at Howard University, where he received an undergraduate degree this year with a major in biology and chemistry, according to his Facebook page.

One of Zamzam’s younger brothers, interviewed at the family’s apartment in Alexandria, Va., said Zamzam has a 4.0 grade-point average and is “a good guy.”

An upstairs neighbor, Peter Max-Jones, 16, called Zamzam “very intelligent, very kind, very helpful. Good citizen, all around.” He said Zamzam’s family was “very patriotic, very quiet.”

A U.S. official said there were no apparent links between the men and another American with roots in Pakistan, David Headley. Headley pleaded not guilty Wednesday in a Chicago federal court to charges he helped a Pakistani group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, plot last year’s terrorist strike on India’s financial capital, Mumbai. That attack killed 166 people, including six Americans.

Headley, who was arrested in October, has also been indicted on charges of plotting an attack on a Danish newspaper that published a controversial cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad. In another case linked to Pakistan, U.S. authorities in September arrested a Colorado airport van driver, Najibullah Zazi, and charged him with receiving explosives training from al-Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal area and conspiring to carry out a bomb attack in New York.

A British court convicted Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 28, Tanvir Hussain, 28, and Assad Sarwar, 29, of conspiring to activate bombs disguised as soft drinks, and later boasting in videos there would be “floods of martyr operations” that would leave body parts scattered in the streets. “Don’t mess with Muslims,” Hussain threatened.

I will not be surprised if Islamist leaders in the U. K. and North America now line up at the mics and issue the familiar denunciations of terrorism accompanied by the oft-repeated claim that “Islam is a religion of peace.” I say to them, this is not enough. Now is the time to say loudly, the doctrine of jihad is outdated and needs to be abandoned.

However, instead of distancing themselves from jihad, too many Muslim leaders are defending it by hiding behind its supposedly peaceful nature. Many take to the pulpit and state with disarming smiles and polite language that jihad is a peaceful exertion of spiritual warfare waged against oneself–against one’s ego and against one’s evil intentions, a sort of a cleansing of the soul. This is all said to be true because after returning from a battle, the Prophet told his colleagues: “You are returning from a lesser jihad to a greater jihad,” and when asked to clarify, he said the greater jihad “is the jihad against your passionate souls.”

But make no mistake: The jihad that Osama bin Laden and these three now-convicted British lieutenants wish to launch on British and Canadian citizens is the lesser jihad.

The jihad that convicted Ottawa terrorist Momin Khawaja talked about in his musings is the jihad of warfare, as clearly enunciated by such 20th-century Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood as Sayyid Qutb and Hassan al-Banna, and Pakistan’s Abu Ala Maudoodi.

This triad of Islamist gurus may be dead, but their ideological inspiration of the world jihadi movements is alive with their apologists in Canada. It is not what the Koran says that matters; it is how Mr. Qutb, Mr. Banna and Mr. Maudoodi interpret the Koran for the jihadis that needs to be discussed.

In the fall of 2007, Islamists set up a stand at Toronto’s annual Word on the Street book festival where they distributed a free booklet titled Towards Understanding Islam, written by Mr. Maudoodi. In the booklet, Mr. Maudoodi exhorts ordinary Muslims to launch jihad, as in armed struggle, against non-Muslims.

“Jihad is part of this overall defence of Islam,” he writes. In case the reader is left with any doubt about the meaning of the word “jihad,” Mr. Maudoodi clarifies: “In the language of the Divine Law, this word [jihad] is used specifically for the war that is waged solely in the name of God against those who perpetrate oppression as enemies of Islam. This supreme sacrifice is the responsibility of all Muslims.”

Mr. Maudoodi goes on to label Muslims who refuse the call to armed jihad as apostates: “Jihad is as much a primary duty as are daily prayers or fasting. One who avoids it is a sinner. His every claim to being a Muslim is doubtful. He is plainly a hypocrite who fails in the test of sincerity and all his acts of worship are a sham, a worthless, hollow show of deception.”

If Muslim countries do not go to war against the enemies of Islam, Mr. Maudoodi says a worldwide uprising by ordinary Muslims is the answer. He writes: “Muslims of the whole world must fight the common enemy.”

Does it surprise anyone that ordinary Muslims in Britain and Canada have rallied to his call and declared jihad against their own countries of birth?

If Mr. Maudoodi’s exhortations to jihad are not enough, we have the words of the late Hassan al-Banna being distributed in our schools and universities. Mr. Banna makes it quite clear that the word “jihad” means armed conflict. He mocks the concept of the lesser and greater jihad, suggesting that this theory is a conspiracy so “Muslims should become negligent.”

In addition, here is what Mr. Qutb, another Egyptian stalwart of the Islamist movement and the Muslim Brotherhood, writes in his classic book Milestones: “Any place where Islamic shariah is not enforced and where Islam is not dominant becomes the Home of Hostility (Dar-ul-Harb). … A Muslim will remain prepared to fight against it, whether it be his birthplace or a place where his relatives reside or where his property or any other material interests are located.”

Sayyid Qutb reduces the message of Islam to the rejection of all laws made by parliaments. He says: “The basis of the message [Islam] is that one should accept the shariah without any question and reject all other laws in any shape or form. This is Islam.”

Unless the leaders of British, American and Canadian mosques, as well as the Islamic organizations in these countries, denounce the doctrine of jihad as pronounced by the Muslim Brotherhood, and distance themselves from the ideology of Messrs. Qutb, Banna and Maudoodi, the insistence that “jihad means peace” will sound hollow. It will merely reinforce the suspicions of many Canadians who feel some overseas groups are pulling the strings in this carefully staged puppet show.

Now is the time for Islamic organizations to state flatly in their weekly sermons from the pulpit: Like slavery and concubinage, the doctrine of armed jihad is obsolete. If they do not, their public utterances should be viewed with suspicion and politicians of all stripes must lay down the law.

Canadian captive Omar Khadr at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Abdullah Khadr broke down in a Toronto court Tuesday, saying he told authorities in Pakistan he had bought weapons for Al Qaeda because he feared if he didn’t say that, his sister would be raped.

The 28-year-old, who is fighting extradition to the United States on terrorism charges, said he invented stories because it was the only way to stop his alleged torture by Pakistani and U.S. officials.

Khadr alleges in an affidavit that during his 14 months in detention, Pakistani officers beat him and penetrated him with a stick and American officials threatened to arrest his sister and have done to her what had been done to him.

While testifying, the eldest son of the infamous Khadr family became choked up and wiped away tears.

“(The Americans) told me that if I didn’t confess … they would bring my sister and do terrible things,” Khadr told Crown prosecutor Howard Piafsky.

An FBI affidavit says the interview team “never threatened to harm or retaliate against Khadr, his sister or any family member if he did not give satisfactory answers.

“It also never threatened to send Khadr or his sister to any prison in Egypt or Uzbekistan, or suggested, directly or indirectly, that he or his sister would be raped,” says the affidavit, part of which was read by Piafsky.

Khadr said he confessed to selling weapons to suspected Al Qaeda member Hamza Al Jowfi because he was reduced to tears and they wouldn’t believe him otherwise.

But the FBI says Khadr never cried and any suggestion he admitted to only minimal involvement is wrong. Instead, “he provided specific and detailed information regarding his relationship and dealings with Al Jowfi,” according to the agency’s affidavit.

Piafsky asked Khadr why he didn’t set the record straight and tell the truth to RCMP Sgt. Konrad Shourie, who interviewed him after his return to Toronto.

Khadr said he told Shourie what he thought he wanted to hear, fearing he’d be sent back to Pakistan.

“You almost predict what they want to hear,” said Khadr, whose father, Ahmed Said Khadr, was a reputed Canadian Al Qaeda financier and friend of Osama bin Laden.

Court saw a videotape of the December 2005 interview between Shourie and a relaxed Khadr, who shares a few laughs with the officer about how to make money by selling anti-aircraft missiles.

Asked about his demeanour, Khadr replied: “I thought Konrad Shourie had power over my life. You do whatever to please the person in front of you. … It’s a defence I built up in Pakistan to try and make the jailers happy.”

The U.S. has requested Khadr’s extradition to face charges of procuring weapons for Al Qaeda and plotting to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Courtesy Islamic Circle of North America -- Billboards such as this one alongside U.S. 101 and Tully Road in San Jose are part of an awareness campaign sponsored nationally by the Islamic Circle of North America, which seeks to dispel misinformation about the Islamic religion

It’s certainly not unusual to spot billboards in Silicon Valley urging you to step into Fry’s Electronics, shop at the Great Mall or buy a new Halloween costume.

But for the first time, billboards asking “Why Islam?” have sprouted up in San Jose, Santa Clara and Concord, along with a blitz of posters on buses and bus stops — a campaign to educate people about the religion and fight negative stereotypes. The ads offer free Korans and a toll-free number people can call to seek answers about the oft-misunderstood religion.

“The best-case scenario of this campaign would be to show the public that Muslims are hardworking, peace-loving family contributors,” said Ahmed Khaleel, 30, of Santa Clara, the outreach coordinator for the Bay Area Chapter of the Islamic Circle of North America, which is sponsoring the “Why Islam” project. “Since Sept. 11, Islam has stood at the focus of negativism. Islam is not synonymous with terrorism.”

The billboard campaign began in New York almost a year before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Ironically, one of the campaign founders, Tariq Amanullah, died in the World Trade Center that day.

But as the nation mourns the eighth anniversary of the attacks today, the dual events of the tragedy and Ramadan make the timing of the billboard campaign especially poignant. Ramadan, a month of sunrise-to-sundown fasting, ends Sept. 19.

The message of the campaign is simply to show that Islam is quitesimilar to other religions.

 ”We fast during Ramadan,” said Ashfaq Parkar, a volunteer with the project where the hot line is based in New Jersey. “And so do Catholics and Jews. We realized as a minority religion in this country that we need to do a better job educating others.”

To that effect, one of the billboards, along Interstate Highway 880 at Brokaw Road in San Jose, says Islam follows the teachings of “Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad.” Some of the billboards are also in Spanish. (The billboards spell Quran with a “qu,” though it’s also commonly spelled “Koran.”)

Each year, the billboard locations change slightly and are funded by local communities. For example, billboards dot highways in Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Boston, Tampa, Fla., and earlier this year in San Francisco. Neither the local nor national chapter of the Islamic Community of North America disclosed how much the entire campaign costs, or how many free Korans have been given away other than “in the thousands each year.”

But Parkar did say that each billboard costs $1,000 to $5,000. Smaller ads may run between $200 and $500 apiece. There are four large billboards along highways in San Jose and Concord, eight bus-stop ads and posters in San Jose and Santa Clara, and 35 bus ads, according to campaign organizers. The ads began Aug. 31 and will run at least four weeks. Parkar said, on average, volunteers field 1,000 monthly calls to the 1-877-WHY-ISLAM hot line, and about the same number of e-mails to WhyIslam.org. In addition, Muslim communities also host open houses during the Ramadan-timed campaign. One such event is happening this evening at the South Bay Islamic Center in San Jose, and another on Saturday in Santa Clara at the Muslim Community Association.

Christian Pastor Bruce Green, who commutes from the Santa Cruz area, spotted the large signs along I-880 and at Highway 101 at Tully Road in San Jose. Green has many Muslim connections, as he serves as an interfaith “bridge builder”‘ at his Fremont church. He correctly assumed it was timed for Ramadan — a month of fasting, but also when Muslims are obligated to teach others about their faith.

“In a sense, it seems as though the Muslims are observing what Christians have already done and are now marketing Islam in a Western manner,” Green said.

Ameen Ashraf of Santa Clara, vice president of the local ICNA chapter, said after a similar ad campaign ran in San Francisco in February, hot line volunteers fielded a spike of about 800 calls in two months. He noticed several new faces at his Santa Clara mosque — visitors from Berkeley or San Francisco — who said they came after seeing the signs.

While most of the effects are anecdotal, organizers say success will be marked by changing even one person’s negative view of Islam.

One time, Ashraf said, a caller started off with sweeping statements, assuming that all Muslims act a certain way. But that call turned into a 30-minute conversation, he said, and at the end, the caller was asking the hot line volunteer, “Hey, can you send me some literature?”

Ramy Zamzam

Ramy Zamzam, 22, one of a group of young men arrested by Pakistani intelligence officials, graduated from West Potomac High School in 2005.
Zamzam, of Egyptian family background, was a senior dental school student at Howard University in Washington, D.C. at the time of his arrest in Sargodha, Pakistan.
The other men, all Americans, are now being held in Lahore: Ahmad A. Minni, 20; Umar Chaudhry, 24; Waqar Khan, 22, and Aman Hassan Yamer, 18. Chaudry’s father, Khalid, was also arrested in Pakistan. All five of the young Americans worshipped at a local mosque off Route 1 on Woodlawn Trail — the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA). Two of the men live on the same street as the mosque.
Their arrest by Pakistani police is based on allegations that they have been working with extremist Pakistani recruiters to join a training camp run by the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Nina Ginsberg, a Washington criminal defense lawyer and spokesman for the young men’s families, has refused to comment on the case or the views of the families beyond that the families are concerned about their safe return to the U.S., and do not believe they were involved in extremist activities as reported by the Pakistan government.
The families reported the men missing in late November, and released a farewell tape in an effort to assist authorities in locating the men. Shortly thereafter Pakistani officials announced their arrest in Pakistan. They have been held in custody since.
At the present time the FBI and the Pakistan intelligence service are investigating the men’s activities. The effort by the U.S. Department of State and the FBI’s effort to secure their release and deportation to the U.S. to face possible criminal charges has been held up by a recent court decision in Lahore to temporarily block the handover of the men to the U.S. government until the Pakistani government submits a detailed report on Thursday, Dec. 17. 

IN RESPONSE to the revelations about the young men and their alleged attempts to link up and train with extremist elements in Pakistan, the Moslem Association of Virginia and the Muslim American Society held a local press conference and issued a written public statement on Dec. 10 expressing their surprise and concern for the five men and the overall issue of radicalization of Muslims in the United States.
A statement from the Muslim American Society said: “Leading American Muslim organizations and community leaders are planning to launch a Web site and organize a summit where young Muslims can ask mainstream scholars questions as part of renewed efforts to combat extremism” … “the summit, to be held in Chicago, Ill., Dec. 23-27, will reach out to young Muslims to do peer mentoring that will focus on positive solutions involving issues of hate, violence, and intolerance.”
Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said: “The idea is really to refute and counter the misuse of certain ayahs (verse of the Qur’an) and hadith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad) that are commonly misused by recruiters of young people who do not understand the depths and circumstances of revelations and just juxtapose superficial and disconnected meaning to justify their actions.”
Imam Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society, believes more imams and trained scholars should take steps to respond to incorrect ideas being promoted on the internet because young people get most of their information online and use social networking sites, blogs, and links as modes of communication. “They [scholars and imams] are not here writing, they’re not posting stuff on the internet” … “therefore, people are taking religious information in a vacuum.”

revivalism and hybridism

This is an answer to Hilman Latief’s “Cosmopolitan Muslims: urban vs rural phenomenon” (The Jakarta Post, Aug. 8, 2009), a response to my previous opinion on “Thick Islam and deep Islam” (the Post, July 16).

Since back in the colonial period, rural areas have been central to the life of Muslims in Indonesia. Most pesantren, the center of Islamic learning and religious authority, are located in rural areas. Most santri, live in rural area. Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the largest Muslim organization in the country, is also based mainly in the rural areas.

While staying away from colonial government and then from Soeharto’s unfriendly politics towards Islam during his first two decades of power, Islam had more freedom to deeply and massively influence people’s life in the rural areas.

Consequently although politically and economically poor, Muslim life in the rural areas is rich with Islamic culture.

Through a long and sometimes uneasy process of give and take, in the rural areas Islamic values have been subtly intertwined with local traditions, norms and customs. As an expression of identity, as reflected in kenduri (ritual feasts) sarongs or qasidah songs, Islam looks more relaxed and comfortable both with itself and with others.

This is what I call “deep Islam”, an Islam that is deeply internalized and maturely externalized by its people, the santri.

Deep Islam is a rural phenomenon in the sense that it has fruitfully developed and has stronger influence in rural areas. Its home is there. Certainly this doesn’t necessarily mean that every rural Muslim is part of deep Islam or that deep Islam is found only in rural area.

To point out a beautiful green garden in one area doesn’t mean that everything there is green or that the green color can only be seen in that particular place.

Unlike in rural areas where Muslim culture has been a key player in social life for centuries, Islam was not as powerful in most urban areas.

In contrast to deep Islam, since the emergence of the *suddenly Muslim’ phenomenon in the 1990s in such cities as Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Medan, Banjarmasin and others, we are presented with an *overdone’ expression of Islam: too Arab, too pretentious, too snobbish, *too much’. This is an assertive Islam that consciously presents itself as being superior, the vanguard of a newly-enlightened people.

While it is true that not every rural Muslim is santri and thus part of deep Islam, it is justifiable to argue that thick Islam is also an urban phenomenon. Why?

Thick Islam is a new phenomenon, a tide that hit swiftly since the 1990s, , as a (probably unintended) consequence of Soeharto’s modernization project among the first Muslim generation of SD Inpres (Presidential Directive Elementary School, a project started in 1973) combined with the powerful wave of global Islamic revitalization after the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

As such, most of its exponents are either young Muslims in urban areas or better educated young people in rural areas who became part of urban life of some sort. They represent a social segment with better access to the modernization project – the middle class. Just like many other social groups, this *suddenly Muslim’ generation is not at all a single entity.

It consists of sub-variants with different layers and degrees of Islamic thickness. In general, they can be categorized into two main groups: the core circle and the floating mass.

The core circle group, puritan in nature, is made up of young committed Muslim activists who are mostly interested in Islamic revivalism, either politically or culturally, or both.

Many of them are professionals and college students in various disciplines with strong eagerness in reinventing a golden Islamic age and converting the secular modern world of the cities where they live in, often as *quick fixe tactics’ for complicated problems.

Hasan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, al-Maududi, as well as Hizbut Tahrir, Jama’ah Tabligh and the like, are dearly aspiring and inspiring for them. They are the revivalist group.

The Prosperous Justice Party PKS)), MMI (Indonesian Mujahidin Council) and many neo-salafis are part of this group. They are relatively small, but very active and have great influence. This explains why most of their supporters are in urban areas. Their potential constituency and main markets are there. This also tells us why they grew rapidly in the beginning and are now stuck at certain point.

The floating mass, larger in number, are the *swing members’. Depending on the situation, they can be part of the revivalist group on the one side, or the cosmopolitan group on the other side of the spectrum. Or, they remain in the middle as part of a completely secular urban life.

Let’s call them the hybrid group. In many cases, they enjoy both the new market of Islam with tons of products to consume as well as the ever fascinating market of global capitalism.

They are easy going hybrid young Muslim generation who can be big fans of MTV trends and happy sympathizers of Islamic revivalism or Islamic cosmopolitanism, either separately or simultaneously.

They are young people – including those of non-santri background who share similar visions – with strong faith in the Islamic heritage and concerned with actual problems of the society and they have no hesitation in exploring new horizons and to taking part in universal global citizenship

The prefabricated mosque arrived in Inuvik last month to serve a growing Muslim population in Canada’s far north, after traveling 4,000 kilometers (2,485 miles) over land and water.

The minaret — built locally and installed this week — has four levels and stands 30 feet (10 meters) off the ground.

“It’s really beautiful when we turn on the lights in the dark,” Amier Suliman, a mosque committee member, told AFP on Wednesday.

Only finishing touches — applying a second coat of paint inside, and hooking up bathroom plumbing — remain before the mosque’s grand opening next week.

“This is the first minaret to be erected in the Arctic,” Suliman said gleefully by telephone.

“Some will say it’s a new frontier for Islam,” he commented. “But for me what is significant is that Muslims here who once prayed on Fridays at a local Catholic church or in a trailer now have a proper place to worship, with a proper minaret.”

“Now we have a home to worship in our own hometown. That’s the most important for me.”

The number of Muslims in Inuvik, a town of 4,000 inhabitants in Canada’s Northwest Territories, has grown steadily in recent years to about 80 and they no longer fit in an old three-by-seven-meter (10-by-23-foot) caravan used until now for prayers.

The congregation could not afford to build a new mosque in the town, where prices for labor and materials are substantially higher than in southern parts of Canada, project coordinator Ahmad Alkhalaf said previously.

But they found a supplier of prefabricated buildings in Manitoba that said it could ship a structure to Inuvik for half the price of building a mosque from scratch on site.

A local Muslim charity — the Zubaidah Tallab Foundation of Thompson, Manitoba — also offered to pick up the costs for the 140-square meter (1,500-square foot) facility, Alkhalaf said.

And so, at the end of August the tiny yellow mosque’s voyage began on the back of truck, winding through the vast prairies and woods of Western Canada toward Hay River on the shores of Great Slave Lake, Northwest Territories.

From there it was transferred onto a barge and floated down the McKenzie River to Inuvik, about 200 kilometers (124 miles) north of the Arctic Circle.

The worshippers — largely Sunni Muslim immigrants from Sudan, Lebanon and Egypt who moved to Canada’s far north in search of jobs and economic opportunities — are to hold an open house on November 5.

The facility will also double as a Muslim community center.