by Jerome du Bois
Two months after 9/11, Phoenix physician M. Zuhdi Jasser's interfaith group had Muslims speaking in a synagogue, but he discouraged Jews visiting mosques. Why? As I noted in an earlier piece, quoting the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix:
Though they originally met at Temple Kol Ami, they do not have immediate plans to visit or meet at a mosque.
"Unfortunately, I can do that only when I have a mosque in the area that I can turn to the group and say, 'that (mosque) comes close to what I believe a mosque should be,' " explains Mohamed Jasser.
Zuhdi Jasser is concerned about the content of the sermons in the mosques. He says too many are "political," and they should instead focus on the values and religious teachings found in the Koran.
Ahmad agrees. "Sermons should stay within the teachings of Islam, not political agendas, and include lessons about improving our behaviors."
Zuhdi Jasser says he is hesitant to get the leader of a mosque --the imam-- involved in the dialogue group. He explains by saying that Islam by nature should be non-hierarchical; anyone can lead worship or classes. He fears an imam would attempt to take a leadership role in the dialogue group they have fostered.
"I believe it is inappropriate for this type of group . . . to get the leadership of a mosque involved and running it, when in fact that's not what this group is all about. This is a grassroots community group," says Jasser.
I wonder how things stand here in Phoenix with Dr. Jasser and his group, four years later? In the meantime several bloggers point to a stunning and discouraging report from a meeting in a small-town US mosque by Laura Mansfield of WorldNetDaily, who understands Arabic --but the imam didn't know that.
Here's an excerpt:
The imam spoke up and told everyone I didn't speak Arabic.
At that point, another student took the podium. His name was Khaled, and he began to recount his recent trip to New York City. Khaled and three of his companions had gone to New York for several days in January. He told of how uncomfortable his trip up to NYC had been. He felt like he was being watched, and thought he was the victim of racial profiling.
Khaled and his friends were pretty unhappy about it, and while in New York, they came up with a plan to "teach a lesson" to the passengers and crew. You can imagine the story Khaled told. He described how he and his friends whispered to each other on the flight, made simultaneous visits to the restroom, and generally tried to "spook" the other passengers. He laughed when he described how several women were in tears, and one man sitting near him was praying.
The others in the room thought the story was quite amusing, judging from the laughter. The imam stood up and told the group that this was a kind of peaceful civil disobedience that should be encouraged, and commended Khaled and his friends for their efforts.
He pointed out that it was through this kind of civil disobedience that ethnic profiling would fail.
And Muslims get pissed when you mistrust them. But Muslims are allowed to lie to promote Islam. It's called taqiyya, and Mansfield saw it in action. The imam did a 180 when the next group meeting --mixed-faith and bilingual-- convened. Perfect taqiyya. You can read it all here, and I urge you to do so. It's mind-blowing. One may smile and smile and be a villain . . .
Meanwhile, here in Phoenix, the most vocal Muslim (in print and online, anyway) I've been able to find, Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, continues to trumpet that we must engage militant Islam and misunderstandings of Islam head-on, on every front. But he won't say a thing about the recent Scottsdale social-studies textbook brouhaha. Dozens of parents --apparently; I have no figures-- objected to the privileging and whitewashing of Islam in this book. It was withdrawn, but, as I had also pointed out, the social-studies textbook that remains has its own dismaying chapters. Dr. Jasser remains silent about that, too.
In that earlier piece I said that I would email Dr. Jasser to alert him that I had written about him. I changed my mind, because that would imply I had questions for him. I don't. I merely note his continued silence.
One final note: I hope that parents realize that late this fall their seventh-grade children will be "celebrating" Ramadan in class. It's a fact. And Muslim speakers will be standing before those children, day after day. Will you know who these people are, where they came from, and what they really want?
Bottom line: they want to make the world Islam, and that would be an ugly world. Let's not let them do that.
[Sorry blogging's been slow, but we're working on a major writing project.]
Posted by Jerome at April 20, 2005 08:30 AM | TrackBack