Critical Islamic Reflections: Papers / Panels

The aim of this year’s CIR conference is to explore the language, tone, assumptions, typologies, images, and ideas used to portray Islam and Muslims in American discourse, the effect that such representations induce, and the interests they serve. The papers to be presented are attempting to not simply present an essential truth, or document misrepresentations, about Islam, but rather to investigate how representations of Islam arise and are used to form and sway public opinion.

List of Papers to be presented at the 2005 Conference:

First Panel: Muslims in America: from Past to Present

“Islam in the Promised Land: How Early Representations of Islam Arose in America and How They Were Shaped For American Interests" [abstract]
Gulsum Gurbuz, Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations, MA, Hartford Seminary

“A Muslim ‘Diaspora’ in the United States?" [abstract]
Dr. Christoph Schumann, University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany

“Pros and Cons: Americanism Against Islamism” [abstract]
Sayres Rudy, Political Science Department, Amherst College

Second Panel: Images and Imagined Selves: The Media and Popular Discourses

“Examining TV News Pedagogies: Young Muslims Re-Productions of ‘War on Terror’ Narratives" [abstract]
Habiba Noor, PhD Candidate, Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media Institute of Education: University of London

“American Visions of the Houri" [abstract]
Nerina Rustomji, Assistant Professor of History and Religion, Bard College

“The Making of an Expert or the Trouble with Irshad Manji" [abstract]
Tarek el-Ariss, New York University

Third Panel: Through the Looking Glass: Discourses within the Muslim Community

"Making Muslims Girls Good: Morality and Education in an Islamic School" [abstract]
Mezna M. Qato, Faculty of Modern History, St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford

"Rep that Islam: the Rhyme and Reason of American Muslim Hip Hop" [abstract]
Su’ad Abdul-Khabeer, Department of Anthropology, Princeton University

"The Impact of the 2003 Iraqi Campaign upon the Interactions of the Iraqi Shi’i, Sunni and Iraqi Christian Communities of Michigan: Where US Foreign Policy and Diaspora Relations Intersect in Younger Generations" [abstract]
Saeed Khan, Wayne State University

"Conversion out of Islam: Representations of Islam in the Accounts of Former Muslims" [abstract]
Mohammad Khalil and Mucahit Bilici. Khalil is a Ph.D. student in Islamic Studies; his current focus is Islamic Intellectual History. Bilici is both a Ph.D. student in Sociology and an author of several articles; his current focus is Islam in America.

Full Abstracts:

Title: Islam in the Promised Land: How Early Representations of Islam Arose in America and How They Were Shaped For American Interests

Author: Gulsum Gurbuz, Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations, MA, Hartford Seminary

Abstract: Early American self-conception as God’s special people continue to have a share in images of Islam and the treatment of Muslims in the West today. Islam currently tends to be known as an anti-democratic and terrorist religion, and this misrepresentation affects the international community.

The coming of Europeans to the New World as if it was their Promised Land, shaped the American perception of the world. This paper traces how Manifest Destiny and Millenarian tendencies of the 19th century created the American public image of inhumane Muslims, for the purpose of American interests. The United States was founded on the religious zeal of chosen people to convey American beliefs and values universally. This ideology created an image of other nations as barbarians, in the name of civilizing their primitive lives as well as justifying their destruction.

The first part of my paper explores how patriotic enthusiasm together with Manifest Destiny tended toshow Islam as a lesson not to fall into Islamic barbarism and tyranny. Early American manuscripts, public talks and plays about Islam and Prophet Muhammad were warnings against this despotic religion, which supposedly was spread by force and serving men’s lust. I will then talk about the second ideology, Millenarianism, which reinforced the “chosen people” superiority complex, and provided for the “Second Kingdom of God” in America. The divine promise that the other nations will “soon be in their rear” made the US into “New Jerusalem.” The result was the same: the depiction of the rest of the world as inferior.

Later, I explore the encounters of Americans with Muslims and the experiences that came out of it. Those experiences also served the same function of revert ing the image of Muslims. The first such encounter was in the war against the Barbary Lands of North Africa, where the natives were depicted as savages. The second was when American missionaries with strong political interests went into Islamic countries. And later, in the travelers’ writings, the same distorted vision of the Muslim world impacted the reading public. The Muslim world was soberly reported to be “sexually unrestrained, ferocious, predatory” in media and press.

There was, however, a different approach to Islam during the late eighteens. A shift from “Islam as Christian heresy” to “Islam as an authentic expression of religion” occurred during the transcendentalist movement. In particular, Carlyle’s writings praising Prophet Muhammad gave way to publications in favor of Islam, but these were limited only to intellectuals. They did not create a different public perception of Islam.

The paper concludes with explanations of how and why the early opinion makers talked about Islam in general, moreover how those images served and continue to serve American interests even today. Islam has been manipulated into political and ideological battle between West and East, presenting the world with distorted vision of 6 billion world Muslims. Yet all these misinterpretations could be understood and explained in terms of American ideology and interests. [return to list of papers]

Title: A Muslim ‘Diaspora’ in the United States?

Author : Dr. Christoph Schumann, University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany

Abstract: The current research on Muslim immigrants in the West, particularly in Europe and the United States, is overwhelmingly dominated by questions of ‘security’ or ‘integration’ into the receiving society. From this perspective, the enduring emotional, religious and political bonds of Muslims to their former homelands as well as to the universal community of believers (umma) are often being perceived as a ‘threat’. However, in fact, the political and societal situation of Muslims in the West is not characterized by unilateral loyalties and attachments to one country or another, but by a complexity of linkages and bonds. Referring to the theoretical debate on the notion of ‘diaspora’, this paper will analyze how Muslims in the United States discuss their specific situation as being a part of the American society as well of the Islamic Umma.

The paper largely relies on the analysis of periodicals published by Muslim American mainstream organizations including Islamic Horizons of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), AMC-Report of the American Muslim Council (AMC), and publications of the Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) from the 1970s up until the present. The paper will argue that Muslim activists who came to the USA in order to pursue their studies during the 1960s regarded their stay in America as transitory. Most of them perceived the American environment as hostile and, therefore, as a threat to their Muslim identity. For this reason, the main question, which was discussed at that time, was how to preserve one’s identity until the point of return to the homeland. During the 1980s, however, most of the students changed their personal plans and decided to stay in the United States. Simultaneously, their perception of both their Muslim homelands and their American environment changed as well. On the one hand, they started to criticize the political situation in the Muslim world more openly, and on the other hand, they discussed the opportunities provided by American society to live and spread the Muslim faith in the U.S. by da`wah (i.e. ‘call to Islam’).

Even though, most Muslim community activists were still reluctant to engage in politics during the 1980s, this changed from the early 1990s onward. The reason for this change was pressure from two sides, namely the Muslim world and the American environment. For the Muslim world, the 1990s was a decade of conflict and strife in places like Palestine, Bosnia and Kashmir. Consequently, American Muslims demanded a more active and constructive role of the USA in the Middle East. Yet, concerning their American environment, American Muslims sought new ways of counteracting against media vilification and the restriction of civil rights. Concordantly, they took a fresh look at universalistic political values such as freedom and equality by relating them to Islamic concepts.

After almost four decades of Muslim activism in the USA, the diasporic challenge is still the question of how live and engage here, while keeping bonds of solidarity to Muslims elsewhere. [return to list of papers]

Title: Examining TV News Pedagogies: Young Muslims Re-Productions of ‘War on Terror’ Narratives

Author: Habiba Noor, PhD Candidate, Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media, Institute of Education: University of London

Abstract: It has been over three years since George W. Bush declared a ‘war on terror’. In the midst of media debates about the war, Euro-American Muslim youth navigate competing and often conflicting notions of Islamic identities as they are disseminated through TV and print news media. How do the interpretive resources for Muslim youth contribute to their constructions of geopolitical and religious knowledge? What is the mainstream newsmedia’s role in catalyzing these young peoples’ identification with the ummah? This paper discusses preliminary findings of my field research which explores how 15 –17 year old Muslims in the US and UK negotiate meanings around the ‘war on terror’ as mediated by TV news.

It has been suggested that most Muslims, young and old, see the news as unfairly biased, portraying Islam in an unfavorable light1. Media is often a starting point for discussions of Islamic identity in the US and has resulted in a range of scripts, generated by Muslims themselves, that articulate this bias. Such a response has become necessary for Muslims to assert their presence in society. However, the script alone does not reflect the complex, and often contradictory, relationship that audiences have with news sources. In an effort to move beyond the patterns where participants restate the rhetoric of media bias against Muslims, I have chosen to use an alternative audience research method that draws from British media and cultural studies. Though it would be useful to simply to map out youths relationship with this script, I am more interested in exploring how western media determines a particular readings of the news, how young Muslim subjectivities reproduce and subvert news discourses.

For my research, I organized a range of focus groups reflecting the diversity Muslims in London and New York. In workshops, participants are asked to produce a TV news piece. I train the participants to produce a news clip, explaining the ‘war on terror’ using selected images from TV news.

Drawing from critical discourse analysis, linguistics and social semiotics my paper details the language and visual resources they used to construct their ‘war on terror’ narratives. I highlight where participants reproduced dominant understandings of the issues and explain the ways in which they reconfigure the stories. While there is certainly no essential Muslim youth reading of the issues, my paper discusses some variations between gender, ethnicity, class, and religious discourses. I also explore their logic for understanding the ‘war against terror’ as code for America’s ‘war against Muslims’. [return to list of papers]

Title: American Visions of the Houri

Author: Nerina Rustomji, Assistant Professor of History and Religion, Bard College

Abstract: Americans have learned that the hijackers of September 11th believed they would gain seventy-two virgins—often called houris—in Paradise for successfully completing their mission. Yet, how has this concept been imparted to the American public? This paper surveys the images of houris in American media in order to examine contemporary American writers’ assumptions about Islam. By studying both sensational and scholarly discourses about the houri, the paper argues that American media and intelligentsia use the houri to represent the vision that Islam has an inherent violence and irrationality that is incongruent with American values of modernity and rationality.

The American sensational discourse is formed by the many allusions to houris in American media. The paper surveys these allusions in newspapers, periodicals, popular press, and television. It maintains that the constant mention of the houri’s virginal status creates an image of Islam that recalls an earlier European and American fascination with the sexually rapacious Muslim tyrant who cannot be satisfied even within his populated harem. Unlike these earlier images, however, contemporary American discourse is centered not on the ruler, but on those who strike against him: suicide bombers are the new rapacious Muslim men, bent on sublimating their sexual energies into destroying lives. The houri acts as the ultimate symbol, then, of American perceptions of Islam as both inherently violent and sexually repressed.

The American scholarly discourse involves the critique that Islam lacks a tradition of substantial scriptural interpretation. Examples of this discourse are news stories about the theory of a German scholar (writing under the name Cristoph Luxenberg) who argues that the Arabic term for houri actually means “white raisin.” By tracing the impact of the articles dedicated to this theory, the paper asserts that American media’s interest in Arabic philology is not merely for academic purposes. Rather, the implication of the story is that Muslims themselves do not even know the meaning of the Quran because they are either prohibited from or choose not to examine their religious texts; by contrast, American and European scholars are better able to understand Islam because they live in free societies that encourage independent, scientific reasoning. In this news phenomenon, the houri represents American assumptions that Muslim belief is not based on reason. In both sensational and scholarly discourses, then, the houri represents American visions about the backward nature of Islamic beliefs and Muslim societies. [return to list of papers]

Title: “Pros and Cons: Americanism Against Islamism”

Author: Sayres Rudy, Political Science Department, Amherst College

Argument: American elite opinion has converged on a progressive view of “Islamism” that requires a “war on terror.” From developments in their discrete fields and shared assumptions, public intellectuals have forged a consensus that (1) honors Islam as a “great, complex, and internally contested civilization,” denouncing ethnocentrism; (2) distinguishes peaceful, accommodating, pro-Western from violent, rejectionist, anti-Western Muslims; (3) attributes Islamist violence to poverty and dictatorship and the resulting doctrinal distortions used to justify atrocities; (4) portrays Islamists as political subjects, not cultural objects. The executive branch, scholars, journalists, writers, philosophers, photographers, mourners, and security reformers alike now speak this sophisticated language of tolerance, erudition, and universalism. But because this consensual view does not adequately describe or explain Islamist trends, it re-inscribes the polarity between the “West” (or “modernity”) and “Islam.” The “enlightened” posture toward Islam deepens the sense of Islamic exceptionalism suggested by the “uniquely violent reaction of Muslims” to globalization, poverty, even tyranny. “Islam may be intricate, grand, and tolerant, but only Muslims respond so viciously and fanatically to common grievances.” The problem is that the consensus misconstrues Islamism as different degrees of one ideology – so veiling, communalism, civil society, militarism, and terrorism are differentiated by strategy, but unified by a common goal. Surely, the consensus denies this characterization, but only normatively, not analytically. By not offering good social explanations for discrepant Islamist political ideals, the consensus unwittingly or deviously mystifies decipherable Islamist political judgments and actions.2 In sum, this slippery-slope argument conflates diverse forms of Islamist activism, obscures the sources of their ideas and profound differences, re-affirms without justification the centrality of “Muslim” politics, and isolates Islamists as unique political creatures. Hence the consensus insinuates that, since Islamism generally resists modernity, its “extremist” version is inevitable and irremediable, i.e., beyond politics and ideology – or “hateful” and “nihilistic.” I argue that providing conceptually and social-scientifically exacting accounts of diverse Islamist trajectories demonstrates their distinct foundations and social meanings, undermining the neo-Orientalist view of the consensus and the “war on terror” it requires.

Approach: This paper concentrates on the ideological “elective affinity” of four American groups publicly engaged with the question of Islamism: the foreign policy establishment, secular-liberals, Middle East scholars, and writers on religion and politics more generally. In each realm the discourse has been refined. But as the normative progress proceeds without descriptive or explanatory adequacy, the improvement is old analytical wine in new attitudinal bottles. The apparent incapacity to explain indurate “Muslim” dictatorial or terrorist tendencies reconstitutes Islam as the inexplicable other of “western” modernization. The underlying and separate logics of the scholars, liberal-secularists, democratic reformers, and liberal realists lead them back to crude culturalism, but it is in concert that these logics have bolstered American militarism against the incorrigible Muslim jihadist. Thus, dissecting the interests, biases, and logics of these varied discourses on Islamism, I show how each individually re-essentializes Islamic rejectionism, how all sustain one another, and how this process creates the target of the “war on terror.” [return to list of papers]

Title: The Making of an Expert or the Trouble with Irshad Manji

Author: Tarek el-Ariss, NYU

Abstract: Following the publication of her best-selling book, The Trouble with Islam (2004), the Canadian author and political activist Irshad Manji became, overnight, an expert on Islam. In this work, she claims to critique the institutionalized violence and intolerance, constitutive of both the faith and its practice, as she collapses the distinction between the two. Dubbing her project “Operation Ijtihad,” Manji calls on Muslims to renounce literalist interpretations of the Qur’an in order to attain freedom, both physical and intellectual. Embraced by Western media as the voice of Muslim reform and hailed as an expert on the culture as such, Manji is invited to debate a wide variety of topics ranging from Islamic exegesis, Muslim diasporas in the West, Sunna, Terrorism, Islam and Democracy, to name a few.

One should consider Manji’s prominence as a result of a heightened Western desire for knowledge about Islam following the events of September 11, 2001. However, it is important to analyze Manji’s case in order to understand the implications of this desire on the kinds of knowledge produced and the sources of their production. In this context, the task at hand is not to discredit or undermine Manji’s theses on the trouble with Islam, or to contest her references to the Qur’an or to Islamic history, but rather to situate her contribution in relation to an expert culture, like the one analyzed by Edward Said in Covering Islam (1981), for instance. However, the expert in Manji’s case is neither the Orientalist scholar nor the CIA agent in Said’s model, but rather a self-identified native informant, strategically positioned at the intersection of a variety of political and media interests.

In this paper I examine the ways in which Manji is cast—and casts herself—as the escapee who survived to tell the story of oppression and confinement, the only possible story. I argue that although she is presented as the voice of reform and liberalism, Manji can only speak from the position of the stereotype, that of the oppressed Muslim woman, captured by the French translation of the title of her book, Musulmane mais libre (Muslim but free). The native informant turned expert, seeking to reform the culture about which he or she writes and to which he or she belongs, denies him or herself in this context the freedom to speak and the possibility of producing new knowledge. [return to list of papers]

Title: Making Muslims Girls Good: Morality and Education in an Islamic School

Author: Mezna M. Qato, Faculty of Modern History, St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford

Abstract: Muslim educational institutions in the US provide a fruitful context from which to study the competition amongst Muslims for the production of a ‘body’ of Muslim American citizens. Similar to other faith communities, a system of educational institutions has expanded the abilities of Muslims to raise their children in what they believe is an “Islamic environment.” Many of these schools are co-educational, with minimized male-female student interaction. A very few, however, are entirely female. Such schools heighten the intensity of contentions facing Muslim communities—increasing sensitivities on gender positions, sexual mores, and cultural knowledge. As a useful microcosm, they foreground issues of gender construction in Muslim spaces, demanding a complication of the study of Islamic education in US and Europe, and the way such education not only attempts to produce model Muslims, but also tries to re/produce model Muslim gender roles. In a study of one school in suburban Illinois, I attempt to understand the shifting dynamics of its productive system, its emergence(s), its community positioning(s) and enforcements, as well as the configurative capacities ushered to establish educational and community authority. Focusing on several points of institutional crises, I ask, how and does the community ever come to a consensus on what defines a space as properly “Islamic?” Where does Islamic authority in the school emanate? How do teachers “teach” Islam, with what tools? How do students navigate the various contentions of teachers, parents, and community members? Do they resist? With what, and where? Who graduates from a school meant to protect girls from the dangers of the outside world? And what becomes of them? [return to list of papers]

Title: Rep that Islam: the Rhyme and Reason of American Muslim Hip Hop

Author: Su’ad Abdul-Khabeer, Department of Anthropology, Princeton University

Abstract: So what’s the meaning of Deening/ Yo, let’s dwell on this meaning/ Is obeying Allah/

When shaitan be scheming/ Is it doing what’s right? / And forbidding what’s wrong?

Waking up for fajr prayer in the early morn/ (Chorus) Deening, Deening/ Yo I said we’re Deening Deening/ That’s right son we’re Deening/ I said we’re Deening/ WHAT3

Most observers and even a number of fans view Hip Hop with an overwhelming focus on “bling bling and bagging honies”, defined as accumulating wealth and engaging in sexual relations with as many beautiful women as possible. Hip Hop concerned with other topics, such as social justice, fades to the background in the multimillion dollar music industry which both sets and responds to trends. Accordingly, it may seem absurd to pair any religion with Hip Hop. Nonetheless Muslim MCs join the ranks of hip hop artists who offer an alternative to the consumption and misogyny replete in mainstream hip hop.4 This paper investigates the rhyme and reason behind Islamic hip hop. Who are Muslim hip hop artists? What kind of hip hop are they producing? And most importantly, why?

My research has revealed that despite the decadence of mainstream Hip Hop and the controversies around music in the Muslim community, Muslim Hip Hop artists share a serious commitment to their religious belief and practice. Moreover while the sound and style of many of these artists are similar to that of mainstream rap music they see their craft as part of a larger project toward the development of authentic American Muslim culture. Further, Islamic Hip Hop is used as a tool to preserve the Islamic identity of Muslim youth and to educate non-Muslims about Islam and Muslims. I have conducted a series of qualitative interviews with a number of prominent Muslim hip hop artists as well as Muslim community and religious leaders who support and promote Islamic Hip Hop. These discussions reveal that Muslim hip hop artists are disturbed by what they perceive as major misconceptions about Muslims held by their coreligionists as well as non-Muslims. Thus the music they create is designed to educate both Muslims and non-Muslims through their lyrical representations, which they believe to be among the most accurate representations about who Muslims are today and who they can be in the future. [return to list of papers]

Title: The Impact of the 2003 Iraqi Campaign upon the Interactions of the Iraqi Shi’i, Sunni and Iraqi Christian Communities of Michigan: Where US Foreign Policy and Diaspora Relations Intersect in Younger Generations

Author: Saeed Khan

Abstract: The American-led military campaign in Iraq of 2003 has had a profound impact upon the various ethnic and religious Iraqi communities in Michigan. The conflicts and divisions, apparent in Iraq, are also manifest in this country, despite the geographic attenuation from the focal point of discontent. Prior to the campaign, the three religio-ethnic Iraqi groups- Sunni, Shi’i and Iraqi Christian- had different opinions vis-à-vis its appropriateness. This variance in attitudes, governed by the respective underlying religious, ethnic, cultural and political differences, evolved as the campaign progressed. The campaign has transitioned from perceived liberation to perceived occupation, sometimes dramatically changing previously held sentiments. The current debate about the political future in Iraq also contributes to the fluidity of opinion within the domestic Iraqi communities.

The metropolitan Detroit area in many ways serves as a microcosm of Iraq. Within a relatively concentrated region, significant numbers of Iraqi expatriates reside, representing the ethnic and religious diversity of their native country. Iraqi-Americans have maintained a presence in the Detroit area for several generations; in fact, some estimates indicate that there are fifth generation members in the community. Iraqi Americans are generally either Christian or Muslim. Within the Iraqi Christian community in the Detroit area, there are Chaldeans, Syriac and Orthodox Iraqi Americans. Muslims, on the other hand, are divided between two denominations: Sunni and Shi’i.

In addition to assessing the demographic composition of the Iraqi-American community, attention will be paid to various periods of interaction among the various groups to gauge how the recent conflict has affected their relationships with one another. These phases are (1) Pre-Crisis Interaction; (2) Interaction during Iraq Crisis; (3) Current Levels of Interaction; and (4) Future Directions of Interaction.

This paper seeks to explore the attitudes and interactions of segments of a diasporic community as affected by events occurring in their native country. Through a series of interviews with the leaders of each respective community- religious, cultural and social- an assessment shall be made of the short- and long-term effects of the Iraq campaign upon the relationship among, and between, these communities in the United States. Particularly, a study will be made of the manner in which subsequent generations of Iraqi-Americans, especially Muslims, have been influenced by events that have occurred in a country known to them vicariously through the narratives of parents and grandparents, and the occasional trip to Iraq. The ongoing conflict in Iraq has caused many young Iraqi-Americans to reevaluate their identity and to reorient the way they classify themselves. An analysis of the various external forces acting upon the relationship of religio-ethnic communities with each other may be established to determine the effects of US foreign policy upon domestic social cooperation and understanding among ethnic groups sharing a common geographic, national origin. [return to list of papers]

Title: Conversion out of Islam: Representations of Islam in the Accounts of Former Muslims

Authors: Mohammad Khalil and Mucahit Bilici

Abstract: Islam is one of the fastest growing religions, in part due to conversion. People from various backgrounds enter Islam for various reasons. On the other hand, and especially post-9/11, pressure placed on Muslim identity has also created instances of people leaving Islam.

Our goal is to investigate the processes through which people exit Islam. We will attempt to identify patterns of conversion out of Islam. Do people who leave Islam tend to abandon religion altogether or do they simply seek different routes? Are ideological concerns at play here, or are there strong social and experiential elements involved as well? What is the nature of these small yet understudied cases of conversion from Islam? We aim to briefly discuss the historical and theoretical background of the apostasy debate and critically explore the contemporary dimensions and patterns of departure from Islam.

In this particular paper, we are presenting the first phase of our research, which is a preliminary survey of this type of discourse as found in both popular books and on the Internet (e.g., Ibn Warraq’s Why I am not a Muslim, Leaving Islam, the “Answering Islam” webpage, etc.). In so doing, we hope to obtain a general picture of some of the common trends found among those who publicly declare their movement away from Islam. [return to list of papers]

1. Middle East Institute, Columbia University: Muslims in New York City Project Focus Group summaries (2003)

Poole, Elizabeth (2002) Reporting Islam: Media Representations of British Muslims

( London: I.B. Taurus)

2. The usual “explanation” reinforces this tendency to the veil-to-terror picture. I call it the “deprivation-continuum model of Islamism” because it associates degree-changes in Islamism [from veiling to community organization to terrorism] to degree-changes in some chosen deprivation, e.g., poverty. This badly describes and explains Islamism.

3. Ahmad, Abdul-Malik, Muhammad, Naeem, Salaam, Joshua “Deening” The Next Level. 2000

4. MC or Microphone Checker is hip hop parlance for rapper