Ecumenical & Interfaith
Network - PCUSA

Current Events, Muslim Responses,
Christian Reactions

Muslims observing fasting month of Ramadan

Ramadan, the Islamic period of fasting from sunup to sundown, in 2008 extends for one month from August 31/September 1, depending upon one's location. It is has become quite common for Amertican Muslims to host interfaith gatherings for iftar, the daily breaking of the fast.

Anticipating the peak in Muslim charitable giving that occurs each year at Ramadan, the U.S. Treasury Department and the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) coordinated a mid-August event on “Charitable Principles of Good Governance and Anti-Terrorist Financing.” Arab- and Muslim-American voices were able to address concerns such as bank account closures because of "suspicious activity," organizations being labeled as unindicted co-conspirators, government watch lists that occasionally become public. The Treasury Dept. is recommending U.S. donors make charitable gifts through a USAID partner, American Charities for Palestine. The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) has a 2004 publication on "American Muslim Charities: Easy Targets in the War on Terror."

Activist Sami Al-Arian goes from prison to house arrest

A critical case involving U.S.-Muslim relations at home has entered a new phase. After 2,020 days, Sami Al-Arian's family (pictured) will have him at home, under house arrest, during Ramadan 2008. He was released from detention on bond and will be under house arrest until brought to trial for current contempt charges or until motions for dismissal are decided. Al-Arian is a long-time Palestinian activist who has fought for civil rights in the U.S. In 1990, he co-founded World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE), a Muslim academic think tank said to be a front for militant Palestinian organizations. In 2007, a jjury acquitted Al-Arian of most charges of the U.S. government against him and, thereafter, a plea agreement required him to leave the U.S. He has not been released because he will not give information the government demands.

Muslim voters' guide looks at the candidates and issues

A voter's guide for Muslim-American voters is available on the web site of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. It looks at defining issues: national security and civil rights, health care, the economy, the Iraq war, immigration, and U.S.-Muslim world relations. It offers the challenge that "it is a misconception that for Muslims religion is not compatible with democracy." Some 35% of the voters addressed are African American, according to its statistics.

Islam prospers in U.S. "in the benign embrace of Christianity," scholar says

Writing about his experience of offering the sermon at a local Episcopal church recently, Muqtedar Khan (pictured), director of Islamic studies at the University of Delaware, recalls that Muslims migrated "to Christian lands in search for religious freedom" within five years of the establishment of Islam. He says he felt "genuine fellowship" with the the congregation he visited recently "and realized that in spite of everything that has happened in global politics, Islam in America prospers in the benign embrace of Christianity."

Saudis promote interreligious dialogue

An international dialogue conference in Madrid in mid-July was mounted by the Muslim World League (MWL) out of an initiative of Saudi king Abdullah. Attendees included the president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Jean-Louis Tauran; two senior Orthodox Christians, plus Tariq Mitri and Shanta Premawardhana, representing the World Council of Churches; Fadi Daou, representing the Middle East Council of Churches; a number of Jewish participants, among them David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee (AJC); and persons from the Hindu, Sikh, and Buddhist communities. See the final communique known as the Madrid Declaration. Read the full reflections prepared by Premarwardhana, including his recommendations for further dialogue. He says the conference "will greatly encourage Muslim communities worldwide to begin to engage in dialogue with their religious neighbors."

Earlier, in June, a Muslim conference gathered in response to Abdullah's call for dialogue had recommended that conferences, forums, and discussion groups be held "between the followers of the prophetic messages and relevant civilizations, cultures, and philosophies." The conference also called for "communication between Islamic sects" to unite Islam and "lighten the effects of fanaticism."

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Building Bridges seminar brings together scholars to study texts

The Building Bridges seminars, convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury, bring together Muslim and Christian scholars for intensive study of scriptural texts. A seventh seminar met in Rome in early 2008 to consider "Communicating the Word: Revelation, Translation and Interpretation in Christianity and Islam." The seminars are among the dialogue efforts highlighted in the recent (and first) Islam and the West: Annual Report on the State of Dialogue, which gave a systematic overview of how Muslim and Western societies perceive and relate to each other on various levels. Other dialogue efforts noted in the document include Washington D.C.'s Interfaith Conference led by Presbyterian Clark Lobenstine and Interfaith Youth Core led by Eboo Patel. See an executive summary of the report. Its principal writer and academic overseers are at Georgetown University, a partner in the Building Bridges dialogues.

UN-backed initiative aims for dialogue between West, Muslim nations

The UN-initiated Alliance of Civilizations (AoC), established to encourage dialogue between the West and Muslim countries, convened its first international forum in mid-January 2008. An action-oriented statement was signed by diverse religious leaders toward the goal of advancing shared security and peace and providing youth with guidance to counter extremist influences. Various initiatives were launched, including a Rapid Response Media Mechanism to help reduce tensions in times of cross-cultural crises by providing a network of individuals who can speak knowledgeably.

Training on Islam and democracy occurs in Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan

The U.S.-based Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy recently conducted three-day workshops in Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan, using its training manual, "Islam and Democracy: Towards Effective Citizenship." The manual, written by writers in the Arab world, addresses corruption and the abuse of power, human rights, elections, and citizen participation in addition to defining democracy and looking at how a state works. It promotes interactive discussion centered on the context of each society without providing "answers."

Articles look at American misperceptions of Islam

Two recent articles look at the current West vs. Islam scenario in American minds. One, by Graham Fuller in Foreign Policy (January/February 2008), sees problems he says would be no different if we lived in what he calls "A World Without Islam." See Martin Marty's synopsis of Graham's argument and a Foreign Policy interview with Graham. The other article, by John Esposito (pictured left) and Dalia Mogahed (pictured right) in the Los Angeles Times, sees American misperceptions of Islam through the lens of the Gallup poll and says, "Rather than allow extremists on either side to dictate how we discuss Islam and the West, we need to listen carefully to the voices of ordinary people. Our victory in the war on terrorism depends on it."

Al-Jazeera meets the First Amendment as it films in Colorado

When al-Jazeera English, a part of the Qatar-based television station, decided to film typical Americans TV viewers responding to the Democratic convention, it went to Golden, Colorado, where the Washington Post says they indeed saw "what American viewers are like." There were demonstrations against al-Jazeera at the bar where the filming was to occur, leading its owner to comment on the demonstrators' emotions, "They only support the First Amendment for people who see things their way."

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U.S. does not adequately protect Muslims from discrimination, UN told

"The United States has failed to adequately protect Muslims, Arabs, Middle Easterners, and South Asians from discrimination," a report offered to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination says. The report, written by a program of the Indiana University School of Law, identifies several areas: "1) arbitrary detentions, 2) use of secret evidence in closed proceedings, 3) immigration delays and special registration, 4) secret detentions, refoulement and proxy torture, 5) shutting down Muslim-run charities, 6) discrimination in prisons, 7) racial profiling, and 8) employment discrimination."

Undergirding marriages of U.S. Muslims requires changes in practices

Because African-American Muslims are often converts, they frequently do not have relatives who can help with the family-oriented Muslim marriage partner selection process. Because Muslims are not accustomed to conducting pre-marital counseling, immigrant American Muslim families are often not well prepared for the cultural changes they face and may become alienated from either Islam or the U.S. These are among the reasons that pioneering local mosque-based marriage programming has begun and questions are arising about how Muslim practice should change within the U.S. context. See a Washington Post article on the issues involved.

Canadian Muslim organizations call for zero tolerance of domestic violence

A long list of Canadian Muslim organizations has called for zero tolerance of violence against women or domestic abuse, urging Canadians of all faiths to address these realities. The call follows an incident involving Muslims.

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International convention against defamation championed by Muslims

An Islamic initiative to develop an international convention against the defamation of religions, led by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), encountered difficulties in Saudi Arabia when its shoura council said the convention would put Muslims in the position of needing to tolerate all other religions. An amended resolution on the subject passed the UN Human Rights Council on March 28 even though some western societies said that it would require the UN's special rapporteur on freedom of expression to police its exercise. In early June, the Paris-based World Association of Newspapers and World Editors Forum condemned the UN Human Rights Council's "repeated efforts to undermine freedom of expression in the name of protecting religious sensibilities" and called upon the council president and the UN secretary general to take action "to ensure that international standards of freedom of expression are fully supported." For background on the broader debate on this issue, see a UN Watch statement of December 2007 and a July 2007 statement from the International Humanist and Ethical Union saying that combating defamation of religion is a flawed effort.

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