The Issue of Islamic Party is too Normative

For less than a year now, political parties which will compete in gaining constituents in the 2004 election have consolidated themselves. However more recently, several Islamic parties or parties based on Islamic constituents, have experienced a worrying fragmentation. Why are Islamic parties so susceptible to fragmentation when unity of ummat (community) has been such a vocal issue? What factors determine the marriages and divorces amongst politicians within Islamic parties?
Syafi’i Anwar MA, Executive Director of International Center for Islam and Pluralism (ICIP) analyzed this phenomenon through a political and cultural approach in an interview with Ulil Abshar-Abdalla (25/9/03). To this PhD candidate at Melbourne University, in many developing countries the primordial political culture is often unable to rationally resolve institutional matters.
ULIL ABSHAR-ABDALLA: Brother Syafi’i, How do you respond to the phenomenon of the susceptibility for dissent within these Islamic parties?
SYAFI’I ANWAR: I notice that the fundamental problem is one of leadership. If we observe the background to the problem further, we’ll find that the starting point is an issue of leadership culture. I don’t know exactly what is the internal situation within those parties since I am not a member of an Islamic party, but I have many friends in them. As far s I can tell from my observations the conflicts often begin from insubstantial problems such as personality conflicts.
ULIL: You have said that the problem is with the leadership in the parties. Now there is Hamzah Haz in PPP, PBB has Yusril Ihza Mahendra, and there is Gus Dur in PKB. What is the crucial distinction between each leader such that they cannot function as a united entity as the community wishes?
SYAFI’I ANWAR: In my observation, the problem is not about the mission or vision of any one of these leaders but one of competing styles of leadership. Amin Rais speak out frankly, uninhibitedly and sometimes he is not wise. Yusril on the other hand is sometimes too rigid. Hamzah Haz is different, he is a politician who blows with the wind, easily-changing views, and that maybe natural for a politician. The problem is why fragmentation happens. I simply think it is not about the vision and mission but about conflicting styles of leadership.
I said it is because the leadership style is central to the leadership, and because every party has a leader figure. I agree that the constituents are important, but as long as the performance of the leader is not good, he will not be easily accepted by all parties.
ULIL: Why do their leadership styles bring them into dispute?
SYAFI’I ANWAR: Because our culture is primordial. We are often incapable of solving personal differences in rational ways. This actually is the common problem facing politicians in developing countries. The matter is that they are not talking about substantial issues.
ULIL: Actually establishing unity is easier at the level of the community than at the level of leadership.
SYAFI’I ANWAR: That’s right. As I’ve said, from observing the political culture, the Indonesian community is actually moderate, tolerant, and appreciative as long as the leader is a good leader.
ULIL: What is the type of political culture among our leaders that they can’t meet up?
SYAFI’I ANWAR: It is competition which is empty in terms of any clear ideology, vision and mission of the party. The matter of vision and mission of these Islamic parties is a problem and is not clear.
ULIL: A disease in our political culture is the clash among the leaders which then influences the base. Why is this so?
SYAFI’I ANWAR: I agree. But I want to emphasize that it’s not only a disease in the Islamic parties but of leaders of parties who prefer to be politicians than statesmen. It’s the biggest problem facing the nation. So, the Islamic party is rich in politicians but poor in terms of statesman.
ULIL: Do politicians always have bad images?
SYAFI’I ANWAR: No. but a politician should think to be statesman. It means, he does not only think in terms of his party, but in the future he should appear as credible, honest, as a man of integrity acting for the state’s best interests.
ULIL: It is all right if a politician is not a statesman.  But if he is a position and salary hunter, he confuses the community.
SYAFI’I ANWAR: Yes. Sometimes they used to read the verse of kursi… hahaha (Quranic verse named kursi which means position). So their orientation is not based upon the people’s interest. This is a big problem for Islamic parties. Besides, the problems concerning the Islamic party are normative and unrelated to really important matters, for instance human rights, employment, removing corruption and so on. Those issues are and should be more fundamental than issues about the enforcement of Islamic sharia which is a normative issue they concentrate upon.
ULIL: We even have seen the emergence of an Islamic Sharia Party.
SYAFI’I ANWAR: I think it will be contra productive. People currently wish for real solutions to real problems. At least the Islamic parties should have clear agendas for facing real problems. As Olivier Roy writes in his book The Failure of Political Islam, the main failure of Islamic parties which we can learn from other state’s experiences, especially Pakistan, is that they have no real agendas for solving the fundamental problems in society, like human rights, corruption and so on. They always focus on normative issues like the obligation of enforcing God’s law and so on.
ULIL: There are many stories about unpromising Islamic parties. My question is this, could we have any expectations for a better performance from Partai Keadilan Sejahtera/PKS (Justice and Welfare Party)?
SYAFI’I ANWAR: I want to see the matter critically. I agree if it is said that PKS is good enough from the aspect of organization, mission, vision, and in having an exemplary board. Here I’m in agreement with Martin Van Bruinessen, an Indonesianist from Netherlands. But the problem is related to the social base of PKS which is limited if it wants to compete in the 2004 election. I have observed that its mass base is on campuses which means PKB is not convincingly populist. Furthermore, PKS concentrates on normative matters as well.
Secondly, even though I am a member of Muhammadiyah, I am interested in Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa/PKB (a party delivered by Nahdlatul Ulama’) as it has a real social base. PKB’s constituency is clear, but the problem there is due to internal friction. As an observer, I must say that it is pitiable. I hope this problem can be resolved, otherwise, it will not only harm the Nahdliyyin, but also the nation in general. The internal clash can be utilized to the advantage of many parties.
ULIL: The problem of PKB is related to the strongman figure of Gus Dur. How do you read the situation?
SYAFI’I ANWAR: Gus Dur’s domination is really a big problem. When we talk about political matters, PKB has a real social base. My concern in PKB is great since it has a more real community. The friction and the splitting potential could have major implications.
What worries me is that this problem is not specific to PKB, but also is occurring in PPP involving Hamzah Haz and Zainuddin MZ. It is the same case there with the reconciliation between them who daily talk about the unity of community.
ULIL: PKB’s mass in the villages is wide and influenced by primordial views about leadership. If their leaders split, they would split as well. How are they to overcome this?
You are right. That’s why the leaders of party should be istiqamah (act in a straight forward way) and maintain a low profile. They should emphasize how to think about and give priority to future prospects. But in politics, keeping a low profile seems to be very politically expensive by nature.

Press Statement: Police assault Muslim in custody for calling them racist

After having arrested the son of Islamic Party general secretary Dr Sahib Mustaqim Bleher for calling a police officer racist when they couldn't find anything wrong with his car, Milton Keynes police abused the 19-year old law student Abdu-l-Muqtadir Mustaqim when holding him in custody for more than 8 hours without feeding him or giving him water. When he was finally released and charged with using offensive language in public as well as possession of an offensive weapon, a small ornamental Arabian-style pocket knife his father had gifted him for his 10th birthday and which he kept in his car's glove compartment, he was severely bruised in the face, the wrists and the shins and is currently being assessed at Milton Keynes General Hospital's accident and emergency department. He intends to file a case against the police and his father, who was Imam at the High Security Prison Woodhill in Milton Keynes for over eight years commented: "They have only proven the allegation of racism by the way they manhandled him today. On the one hand the police ask the Muslim community to cooperate with them in the fight on terror, on the other hand they are terrorising the community and are breaking down any remaining trust irrevocably." 

The Marriage Project: A Project Nation

In my career as an instructor of "Fiqh of Love" and "Love Notes" with AlMaghrib Institute, the activity and survey sessions conducted in the class environment included many personal questions submitted by students (both men and women), regarding marriage and marital life. Through this, and the overwhelming marriage counseling sessions and advices given in the course of the past four to five years, I was able to collect enough data and statistics to open a window on the status of social life in the Muslim community in America and provide an insight into the crisis of marriage we face here. The findings com from multiple locations all around the country including places such as Houston, New Jersey, New York, Chicago, The Bay Area and elsewhere - and the results were startling. The marriage crisis is a big crisis indeed, and while many of our respected older generation are unaware of it, or at least act like that, the youth were left helpless and sometimes hopeless.
In my lecture at Ilmfest in NY "The Crisis of Marriage" back in March 2008, I attempted to speak for the youth, voice their concern and highlight some of these findings, which I'm working on publishing as a separate research insha'Allah. Many of these problems fall into systematic categories that can be summarized into three:
1. Conventional -mixed- views of marriage.
This includes, but not exclusively, issues such as ideals of love and marriage, the premarital life and experience and the determination of readiness in terms of education, career and finances.
2. Gender issues (and yes we do have a gender issue in the Muslim community).
This in this age is a natural contribution of the western culture to the American Muslim community. It includes issues of feminism, gender expectations, sexuality and marriage patterns especially egalitarian marriage and its challenge to the traditional Islamic version of patriarchy.
3. The cultural expectations.
We cannot deny the existence of at least two generations from two different cultures widely misconstrued as one culture, first generation of Muslim immigrants and the second generation of Muslims who were born or grew up in America.
The Muslim community in America is also one of the, if not the most, diverse community in America in terms of ethnicity, race, culture, education, economy, background and religious affiliation (on juristic, political and sometimes sectarian ground). With all this diversity and without getting into the details of this matter, different cultural expectations arise.
Parents (for too many different reasons) are unfortunately rated as the number one reason why too many men and women are delaying their marriages. Surveying the youth, they admit that once they hit the road of career -per their parent's demands- and pass the emotional cycle of love and enamor, the desire for marriage becomes for no more than a social requirement that influences their choice. Hence the decision for marriage is usually pragmatic. These marriages are what I call 'Technical Marriages' and many people today are technically married but not wholeheartedly married. Some decide to delay their marriages further fearing they might fall into this abyss of technical marriage not realizing that by doing so are increasing their chances of falling into it.
One other crisis facing the Muslim community largely overlooked by many observers is the issue of sustaining the few marriages available among the youth in America and the West. There is an illusive feeling of satisfaction among the crowd that once the marriage is done, the job is also done. Well, not so fast.
One of the very famous statements repeated in my love and marriage lectures is when you decide to get married: "Never Make Failure an Option" i.e. do not just try it; commit to it and put all your heart and effort into make it successful. Your spouse does not come with a 30 day return policy or 'satisfaction guaranteed', so stop whining and do not waste your time looking for the 1-800 number on your marriage contract…you won't find it.
The divorce rate among Muslim families is higher than it should be, and higher than it used to be. Muslims who once were proud of their marriage institution as one of the most successful in the world can no longer take pride in that. We are facing a serious problem here; "Divorce." It seems that most of the solutions presented to the market are focusing on one single issue, initiating the marriage. Now that I'm married, as someone might say, what shall I do next? That's a question that many matrimonial services do not answer and hence increase the chances of divorce.
Many young men and women are left to experience marital life on their own once they initiate the marriage, thinking that if my parents managed their life, I can do so as well. The complexity of our time and life does not permit this simplicity anymore. There has to be a premarital education plan for those who are seriously thinking about marriage, and truly it should also include those who are not serious at all as well. Let them learn to be serious for once. Special programs, and that is another challenge by itself, should also be designed to educated parents - the in-laws to be.
This educational program should include, besides the conventional lectures on marital relations, topics pertinent to spiritual life after marriage, parenting in the west, economics and finances of marriage, psychology of marriage, the sociality of marital life and any area that experts believe essential to build a healthy marital life. Remember that sooner or later you will at least have to deal with the delicate issue of the in-laws. In short even marriage requires 'coaching'. Our youth need 'Marriage Coach' services for at least the first year of marriage.
Once the marriage is been established and life starts going smooth for the first year, change will begin. Some changes happen rapidly and faster than the couple can comprehend in a timely manner, for instance a newborn child. Once this rapid change settles down - the child starts going to PK school - it becomes a new norm and the change turns slow and creating a routine. This, as it sounds, brings boredom to the marital life. Both scenarios put too much pressure on the family and cause lots of problems. The solution?! Regular or conscious marriage counseling. Muslims inherited the cultural bias against marriage counseling as a mean of intrusion. For some, a marriage that requires counseling is not worth saving. This view has to change and a professional 'Muslim Counseling' needs to be developed on national level.
My proposal for a solution, therefore, lies in developing three services:

1. Practical and realistic eHarmony Islamic style 'Matrimonial Services' with clear comprehensive criteria.
2. 'Marriage Coaching' educational service that springs from Islamic teachings and Muslim culture.
3. Long term 'Marriage Counseling' to handle sever scenarios of difficult marriages.

As ambitious and idealistic this project might appear, I do not see it impossible to achieve, but it requires the participation of diverse sectors of the Muslim community in America and the West. This is not a one local Imam job or a single Islamic center or organization work. It's a polycentric Islamic social movement on a national level that should involve think tanks and experts of multi groups of Imams, psychologists, sociologists, economists, educators, community leaders, parents and many more, and most importantly 'the youth'. It is 'A Project Nation' - a Marriage Project.

Bloomberg Releases Comprehensive Islamic Finance Platform

Bloomberg also announced, in cooperation with the Association of Islamic Banking Institutions Malaysia (AIBIM), the launch of a Malaysian Ringgit (MYR) sukuk index to provide a benchmark for MYR sovereign sukuk investments.
“The Islamic marketplace is growing rapidly and there is high demand for a wide range of resources,” Dan Doctoroff, President of Bloomberg L.P, said from Kuala Lumpur. “Bloomberg is delighted to increase its commitment to serve this dynamic market, where we have nearly 20 years of experience in reporting on Islamic financial news, in all regions and across multiple asset classes.”
Gerard Francis, Bloomberg’s Global Head of Emerging Markets and Islamic Finance, said: “Bloomberg’s Islamic Finance Platform provides the most complete, customizable and innovative solution available today. ISLM has the broadest set of Islamic finance data, analytics and proprietary news, significantly increasing market transparency. ISLM will give investment professionals the edge they need to make informed decisions and meet the increasing demands of investors and regulators.”
The new Bloomberg ISLM platform has extensive resources for investing in fixed income, equities and money markets that comply with Shariah including:
-Sukuk- News coverage, analytics and search tools of more than 1,500 Islamic bond issues globally including fatwa endorsements and structured diagrams of the financial instruments. It also includes credit ratings and searchable data on Islamic loans globally.
-Equities & Funds - Screening of over 35,000 Shariah-compliant stocks by prominent screening agencies. Database of more than 500 Islamic funds with ability to research and monitor debt, commodities, equities and exchange traded funds (ETFs).
-Islamic Community Database - Providing full transparency into more than 250 Shariah scholars with details on which sukuk they have rated, boards they represent and their fatwa endorsements. Also included is a listing of more than 70 Islamic banks and profiles on all prominent Islamic institutions and regulators.
-Regional specific content - Carrying the Malaysia International Islamic Financial Centre (MIFC) initiative’s content, developed in collaboration with Bank Negara Malaysia and other MIFC community members; providing insights on Shariah, MIFC business opportunities and key developments; and listing the more than 90 community members for business connections.
The platform is integrated with the Bloomberg Professional® service. It supports Bloomberg’s leading Order Management System (OMS) and Asset and Investment Management system (AIM).
The Bloomberg AIBIM Bursa Malaysia Sovereign Shariah Index (BMSSI) developed together with The Association of Islamic Banking Institutions Malaysia (AIBIM), provides a benchmark of performance for investors seeking exposure to Shariah-compliant Malaysian Ringgit-denominated Sovereign Issuances. The BMSSI will set a standard for increased transparency and provide performance measures for Islamic markets.
“The MYR sukuk index developed with Bloomberg will become the Islamic benchmark of choice for the Malaysian sukuk market and help stimulate the growth, competitiveness and sustainability of Islamic financial services,” says Dato’ Mohd Redza Shah Abdul Wahid, President, AIBIM. “With strategic partnerships and collaborative efforts, we can build an extensive and innovative leading-edge Islamic financial community that will succeed globally and enhance international presence for Islamic products and services.”
Sheikh Dr. Mohd Daud Bakar, Managing Director, Amanie Islamic Finance Consultancy and Education, said: “Islamic finance represents important growth opportunities, and through the full range of institutions and products available, contributes to the expansion and intensity of the financial markets. Islamic products and services present feasible and competitive alternatives to conventional methods of investment. They are increasingly popular as financing and investment tools.”
“We are delighted to provide a unique solution for our customers. Our product and service should not only benefit the existing Islamic finance community, but potential new players in this rapidly growing market,” says UAE-based Max Linnington, Regional Head Middle East and Africa, Bloomberg.
The announcement was made at Bloomberg client event in Kuala Lumpur, where leading financial executives attended presentations and panel discussion with Shariah Scholars, Bloomberg Islamic Finance experts and Central Bank representatives.

About Bloomberg

Bloomberg is the world’s most trusted source of information for financial professionals and businesses. Bloomberg combines innovative technology with unmatched analytic, data, news, research, display and distribution capabilities, to deliver critical information via the Bloomberg Professional® service and multimedia platforms. Bloomberg’s media properties span television, radio, digital and print, making up one of the world’s largest news organizations with more than 2,300 news and multimedia professionals at 146 bureaus in 72 countries. For more information go to www.bloomberg.com

About AIBIM

The Association of Islamic Banking Institutions Malaysia (AIBIM) was established in 1995. AIBIM’s objectives, among others are to foster the establishment and the conduct of sound Islamic banking system and practices in Malaysia in cooperation and consultation with Bank Negara Malaysia or other domestic regulatory bodies, to promote and represent the interests of members, to promote Islamic banking related education and training programmes and to work in collaboration with other similar associations worldwide.

Veiled threats: row over Islamic dress opens bitter divisions in France

In the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, with its busy market, fast-food joints and bargain clothes shops, Angelica Winterstein only goes out once a week – and only if she really has to.
"I feel like I'm being judged walking down the street. People tut or spit. In a smart area west of Paris, one man stopped his car and shouted: 'Why don't you go back to where you came from?' But I'm French, I couldn't be more French," said the 23-year-old, who was born and raised in bourgeois Versailles.
Once a fervent Catholic, Winterstein converted to Islam at 18. Six months ago she began wearing a loose, floor-length black jilbab, showing only her expertly made-up face from eyebrows to chin. She now wants to add the final piece, and wear full niqab, covering her face and leaving just her eyes visible.
"But this week, after Sarkozy announced that full veils weren't welcome in France, things have got really difficult," she said. "As it is, people sometimes shout 'Ninja' at me. It's impossible to find a job – I'm a qualified childminder and get plenty of interviews because of my CV, but when people see me in person, they don't call back. It's difficult in this country, there's a certain mood in the air. I don't feel comfortable walking around."
This week, France plunged into another bitterly divisive national debate on Muslim women's clothing, reopening questions on how the country with western Europe's biggest Muslim community integrates Islam into its secular republic. A parliamentary inquiry is to examine how many women in France wear full Islamic veils or niqab before a decision is made over possibly banning such garments in the street. More than 50 MPs from across the political spectrum have called for restrictions on full veils, called "degrading", "submissive" and "coffins" by politicians. Yet the actual numbers of niqab wearers in France appears to be so small that TV news crews have struggled to find individuals to film. Muslim groups estimate that there are perhaps only a few hundred women fully covering themselves out of a Muslim population of over 5 million – often young French women, many of them converts.
That such a marginal issue can suddenly take centre stage in a country otherwise struggling with major issues of mass unemployment and protest over public sector reform shows how powerful the symbol of the headscarf and veil remains in France.
Human rights groups warned this week that the row over niqabs risks exacerbating the growing problem of discrimination against women wearing standard Muslim headscarves. Five years on from the heated national debate over France's 2004 law banning headscarves and all conspicuous religious symbols from state schools, there has been an increase in general discrimination against adult women who cover their heads.
"Women in standard headscarves have been refused access to voting booths, driving lessons, barred from their own wedding ceremonies at town halls, ejected from university classes and in one case, a woman in a bank was not allowed to withdraw cash from her own account at the counter. This is clear discrimination by people who wrongly use the school law to claim that France is a secular state that doesn't allow headscarves in public places. It's utterly illegal and the courts rule in our favour," said Renee Le Mignot, co-president of the Movement Against Racism and for Friendship Between Peoples. "Our fear is that the current niqab debate is going to make this general discrimination worse."
Samy Debah, a history teacher who heads France's Collective against Islamophobia, said 80% of discrimination cases reported to his group involved women wearing standard headscarves.
He had rarely seen any instances of women wearing niqabs, even in the ethnically mixed north Paris suburb where he lives. "From our figures, the biggest discriminator against Muslim women is the state and state officials," he said. "What people have to understand is that the concept of French secularism is not anti-religion per se, it is supposed to be about respecting all religions."
The current initiative against full Islamic veils began in Venissieux, a leftwing area on the industrial outskirts of Lyon. Its communist mayor, André Gerin, led proposals for a clampdown, saying he saw increasing numbers of full veils in his constituency.
"I call them walking prisons, phantoms that go past us, it's that visual aspect that's an issue," Gerin said. "There's a malaise in the general population faced with the proliferation of these garments. I sense that on the part of Muslims, too."
Gerin said women in niqab posed "concrete problems" in daily life. "We had an issue in a school where a headteacher at the end of the school day didn't want to hand back two children to a phantom," he said. Gerin has refused to conduct the town-hall wedding of a woman wearing niqab. Another woman wearing a full veil was refused social housing by a landlord in the area. The mayor said that when women haven't removed their face covering, it has resulted in conflict with public officials who often felt insulted or under attack. But he denied stigmatising the wider Muslim population.
"The current situation [where women wear niqabs] is stigmatising Muslims," he said. His aim was to "establish a debate with the Muslim community, integrate Islam properly into French life" and expose fundamentalist practices.
Two previous calls for a law restricting full veils have been left to gather dust. This time, the debate is gathering force. There are divisions in the government itself – the feminist Muslim junior minister, Fadela Amara, supports a niqab ban while the immigration minister, Eric Besson, warns it would create unnecessary tension.
Horia Demiati, 30, a French financier who wears a standard headscarf with her business suits, said: "I really fear an increase in hatred." She recently won a discrimination case after she and her family, including a six-month baby, were refused access to a rural holiday apartment they had booked in the Vosges. The woman who refused them argued that she was a secular feminist and didn't want to see the headscarf, "an instrument of women's submission and oppression", in her establishment.
Demiati said: "This niqab debate is such a marginal issue, yet it risks detracting from the real issues in France."

Interest in Islam mounts after 11 September

A year ago they feared their religion would be tarred by the attack that left over 3,000 dead in  on New York and Washington. But Muslims across Britain are now crediting an '11 September factor' for the upsurge of interest in their religion.

From Islamic bookshops and university comparative religion courses to the dusty corridors of Whitehall, non-Muslims are rushing to find out more about the beliefs of Islam and the life of the Prophet Mohammed.

Sales of the Muslim holy book, the Koran, have gone through the roof. Penguin, the publishers of the best-known English-language translation of the Koran, registered a 15-fold increase in the three months following 11 September and sales have held up well since.

Meanwhile the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has been overwhelmed by the response to new Islamic Awareness courses they have set up for diplomats being posted to Muslim countries and London-based staff with an interest in the wider Islamic world.

Not since the Satanic Verses affair in 1989, when novelist Salman Rushdie was condemned to death for blasphemy by Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, has Islam been such a sensitive political issue in Britain.

The rise in Islamophobia and even racist attacks has been matched, sometimes in the same geographical area, by a thirst for knowledge of a religion which many are surprised to find has common links to Christianity and Judaism. Moses and Christ are both considered prophets in Islam.

Dilowar Khan, director of the East London mosque which holds open days for non-Muslims four times a year, said that visits from schools, university students and even tourists had increased over the past year. At the same time he said there had been an average of two or three people asking to convert every month.

'A similar thing happened during the Salman Rushdie affair. A lot of people converted to Islam as they struggled to understand what was happening. Of course, there has been the opposite effect as well, some people have become more hostile, said Mr Khan.

The East London mosque now plans to publish a magazine Discover Islam to cater for the demand for information. The first issue will contain an article on the attractions of the Muslim faith by journalist Yvonne Ridley, held captive by the Taliban last year and now considering converting to Islam.

Dr Abdulkarim Khalil, director of the Al-Manaar Cultural Heritage Centre in Kensington, West London, which opened shortly after 11 September, said: 'In a sense it was a natural reaction to the events. People wanted to know more and we expected that, but no one expected the scale of the interest, not just here but across the world.'

Dr Khalil said that there had been some minor incidents immediately after the terror attacks, when women were verbally abused for wearing the headscarf, the hejab. 'But we've been surprised that nothing serious has happened. We've even had non-Muslim members of the local community coming to reassure us and express their support for the centre.' Although some experts talk of a 'know thy enemy factor' in the rush to find out about Islam in the aftermath of 11 September, the panic has now settled into genuine interest.

At the traditionally Arabist Foreign Office, the fascination for Islam has filtered down throughout the department over the past year. Trial Islamic Awareness Training sessions have proved so successful that Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has decided to offer them to all Foreign Office staff likely to come into contact with Islamic issues. The courses consist of a lecture on the basic tenets of Islam followed by a speech by a visiting expert on contemporary Muslim issues and a visit to a mosque.

In a speech to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies earlier this year, Straw urged a greater understanding of Islam. Last month the Foreign Office also hosted the largest reception for the Muslim community ever held by a government department, although many thought they were being softened up for a planned attack on Iraq.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: 'The cultural element has always been a central part of the training of diplomats, but it has usually been part of language courses. We wanted to extend the training and make it become systematic throughout the office.'

The unhappy search for the “gay” Muslim

As anyone who has criticised Zionism, we’ve been accused of being anti-Semitic, and now we are likely to be called homophobic too, for not conceding that homosexuality is a normal condition and simply a matter of choice. However, as our guest writer Alexander Baron points out in his article in this issue, these are smear terms coined to discredit and bereft of any real meaning. People who disagree with homosexuality are not afraid of homosexuals, as the term homophobia would imply, they are disgusted by them. Nor is there anything gay about the unhealthy and unstable lifestyles of members of the vociferous GLBT (Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual-Transsexual) movement.  
So why do we concern ourselves with them in this issue of Common Sense? All too often have Muslims in the West closed their eyes and buried their heads in the sand vis-à-vis the civilisational diseases surrounding us, hoping and praying that they were somehow immune to them. Ignoring a problem does not make it go away, and the problem of homosexual propaganda and intimidation must be addressed rather than ignored or laughed off. Young people especially are vulnerable and more susceptible to propaganda. The Muslim youth are confused and unsure of their identity, they have dabbled into rap music and drug culture, they are experimenting with relationships, whilst their elders pretend that all is fine as long as they continue flattering each other at the mosque about the great services they render to the community. Our youth are a welcome prey to ill-meaning people with an agenda.  
In the past “gay rights” campaigners limited themselves to trying to make Muslims feel bad for not understanding and for “victimising” them. Muslim speakers at universities were asked to give an undertaking that they would not say anything considered prejudicial to people with a different “sexual orientation”. In the old one rule for one, another rule for another tradition, non-Muslim speakers were never asked not to offend Muslim sensitivities during their lectures. Muslim bashing remains the acceptable face of anti-Semitism.  
On an international level a similar approach brought repeated attempts to have an unnatural sexual orientation enshrined as a human right. Once this concept were accepted, UN support programmes or any other assistance could then be tied to the condition placed upon the recipient party to safeguard this “human right”. Thus, bullying and bribery remain the most potent means of changing the minds of people who refuse to be convinced by a spurious argument.  
Meanwhile, the movement feels confident enough to target the Muslim community more directly, very much in the same way as they have already broken the resistance of the Catholic Church, for example. The high-profile reporting of homosexual priests portrays Christian opposition to such unnatural practices as hypocritical. If Muslims could be made to “come out”, or be exposed, as homosexuals, the persistent opposition of Muslims as a whole might equally be broken.  
A cursory search of the internet, this hotchpotch of truths, half-truths, and the bizarre shows a growing presence of such attempts. It also shows the increased confidence of those who want to undermine and pervert Islamic teachings. There is, for example, a group called “Queer Jihad”, which used to be run by a Sulaiman X, a self-styled admirer of Malcolm X with Buddhist leanings. His approach was one of pleading for “tolerance” for Muslims who “discovered” that they were gay or lesbian, advocating a non-physical “love” relationship between Muslim members of the same sex attracted to each other whilst acknowledging the opposition of Islamic teachings to such a relationship. He obviously realised that a religion which does not even condone heterosexual casual relationships and insists on marriage as a precondition for intimacy would hardly be lenient towards members of the same sex living in sin together.  
This “pioneer” of the Muslim branch of the homosexual movement has now been replaced by a former Baptist convert to homosexual Islam who has come with his own agenda. From the plea for tolerance of his predecessor this advocate of the homosexual lifestyle has moved to dabbling into the interpretation of Qur’an and Hadith and trying to make the case that homosexuality is Islamically acceptable per se. The people of Lot were not destroyed simply because they were homosexual, but because they tried to force themselves with lust upon others who were not, he argues. It’s the public rape they were guilty of, not the same sex activity amongst each other. He goes further trying to construe from a selection of Hadith that homosexuality was an accepted practice at the time of the prophet, provided that those engaged in it did not intend to marry a member of the opposite sex at a later stage.  
Absurd as all this may sound, it is a poison administered at a time where the new generation of Muslims are no longer well versed in the teachings and source texts of Islam and obtain much of their information from the world wide web. Unless one understands that this is a concerted propagandistic effort by a well-organised and funded movement, not just the “queer” ramblings of a few eccentric and deranged people, there is a real danger that the certainties of faith will be eroded as has happened in the case of other religions.  
The “gay” lobby in this country is powerful enough to force a leadership debate in the Conservative Party. Public sympathy for homosexuals is not as common as the propaganda suggests, but neither is there much sympathy for Muslims. Just as the British National Party joined the convenient bandwagon of anti-Muslim sentiment to pursue its racist agenda, the homosexual movement will find this an opportune time for attacking Islam’s “homophobia”. To withstand this onslaught, we must address the issues in an informed way and avoid being apologetic.