How to Combat Extremism?
The Muslim Public Affairs Council, a national Muslim
organization, recently came up with a solution to the problem of violent
extremism or extremism among Muslims. Its executive summary reads that “Imams
and community leaders have the ability to address theological, social, and
familial issues much more effectively than law enforcement,” and Muslim efforts
should be “intended to proactively prevent acts of violent extremism from being
born inside our community institutions.” It concludes that if all efforts fail
to contain extremists only as last resort, should eviction from a community
occurs, charging communities with working “toward safely removing that
individual from the congregation and contacting law enforcement.”
It is a document that has good intentions and
genuine concerns as well as good suggestions. But, it leaves many questions
unanswered as part of the analysis is seemingly weak or naïve at times.
However, as a preliminary step towards the ultimate goal of developing a
genuine understanding of extremism in Islam as it should be appreciated. As far as
the suggestions to combat extremism are concerned, they are simply suggestions
and many more can be offered by the community members if involved in the discussion.
The document makes several assumptions that need to
be substantiated and suggests several solutions that deserve to be critically
examined. Some of the underlying assumptions are:
1. The
American Muslim community has a substantial number of extremists.
2. Many
of these stealth extremists may become violent.
3. Imams
and community leaders are more effective in dealing with violent extremists
than law enforcement agencies.
4. Muslim
imams should police their own communities and engage those who are extremists
in order to help them change their perspectives.
5. If
they fail to contain the extremists, they should then excommunicate such
members and inform the police.
Extremism
Extremism is an elusive political term and in general sense
considered to be far outside the mainstream attitudes of a community or a
society. Or it is also defined as a set of ideas that violate the common moral
standards
In the context of Islam, extremism is used as
a set of ideas that is based on the extremely conservative view of Islam that may
not necessarily promote violence or the use of extreme violent tactics for achieving
perceived religious objectives. But these are arbitrary abstract definitions
and can be applied to define any group extremist. For instance, in the view of
many Zionist organizations in this country, MPAC or Council of American Muslim
Relations (CAIR) are two extremist organizations.
If this set of definitions is applied to
define Muslim communities, then probably every Muslim group can categorize
others as extremist or violent extremist. So, before we really talk about it,
we need to develop an objective and realistic definition of extremism.
Currently, our existing definitions of extremism are subjective and politically
motivated. We have no consensus. The FBI has a different set of definitions, the CIA
has different. The Republicans and Democrats have contradictory definitions and
the Islamophobes have their own set of ideas. So the first thing that should
be our priority is to define extremism from our sociological, theological
perspective.
The responsibility of defining extremism
within the Muslim community rests with Muslim intellectuals and religious
scholars. We never had the debate to understand it and define it in our social
and political context. Hence each is relying on a subjective definition and
that does not serve any purpose. In Islamic literature, one can easily find
examples where every Muslim sect and group has been defined as extremist by
fellow Muslim groups. Moreover, in the absence of an objective definition, we
rely on a definition that serves the purpose of some special interest groups.
Lack of Data
Even if we use a subjective definition of extremism,
there are no data to prove that the American Muslim community has extremism
widely prevalent in its ranks. There is no survey and no study that suggests
that. On the contrary, several studies conducted by Muslims and others have
suggested that the bulk of the Muslim community rarely visits Islamic institutions
established to serve them One such study suggests that only 20 percent Muslims
attend the Friday congregational prayers. Las Vegas seems to have a Muslim
population of 15,000 to 18,000. The total number of people who offer Friday
prayers in five of the city’s masjid regularly is about 1300 including women, That
is less than 10 percent of the population. A similar pattern is visible in
Arizona, Utah, and California as well as other states. So before one talks about
the problem one should study its dimensions and scope.
The Imam and community leaders
Of over 3,000 masjids in the US, some 80 percent
have imams who are trained in foreign countries with little understanding of
English, the constitution of the US, the history of Muslims in America and the
social and political realities of the country. They may be well versed in
Islamic jurisprudence but have no idea of the legal system of this country. In
fact, their knowledge of Islam mainly comes from their sectarian upbringing. A
Shia mosque has a Shia scholar coming from established Shia communities in
different parts of the world and a Sunni mosque has a Sunni Imam in representing a
particular school of thought. Each is strict in his own traditions and often
unwilling to accommodate the differences of opinion. How could such Imam who has no clue of
existing conditions of their own larger communities play an effective role in
combating extremism? In fact, many of them may easily be described as extremists
by the subjective definitions, arbitrarily used by many. The curriculum
prepared by some institutions to train Imam lack any reference to the times and
social matrix of the society we all are living.
Most community leaders are non-representational of
their communities. They are not elected and in many cases elected through
manipulations. They may represent a particular ideological perspective without
revealing that. Obviously, they do not carry lots of weight within their own
communities. For instance, many Muslim community leaders still owe their
allegiance to either the Jamat Islami, Pakistan, Bangladesh or India or
Ikhwanul Muslimeen of Egypt or Hizb Tahrir of Jordan, or Tablighi Jamat or other
similar Islamic groups
Policing the Community
In a free society, each is entitled to freedom of ideas
and expression. The US allows even extremists the freedom to flourish. Amish
people are considered extreme by many modernists, yet they have full rights to
live the way they want to live as long as they owe oath of allegiance to the
constitution and maintain law and order. No one can police the thought process of the
other. It is dangerous and amounts to vigilante. If we allow this within our
community, why do we, then, object to others when they do the same to us.
Having extremist ideas is not a crime in this country.
Acting on ideas that defy the constitution of the country is. KKK still exists
and several groups owing allegiance to Hitler are also active in this country. Several
hate groups are active without being prosecuted.
As a citizen or a community, it is within our legal
right to seek restrictive orders for an individual we do not like to be part of
our congregation. But to hand him over
to the police for his ideas would be against the spirit of freedom of ideas
that our religion and this country promote. I should not call the FBI if I find
that a member of my community believes that women should not be allowed in the
masjid for some extreme reasons. Or I should not invite the police to arrest a
man because he is reading a verse of the Quran that is translated by many that “Jews
and Christians should be taken as friends,” I can give him my perspective on
the verse but cannot force him to change his perspective. Even if he insists on
an extremist definition, I have no business to report him to the FBI and the Police.
Who would guarantee that the Imams or leaders who themselves are representing a
particular sect or faction would always have a fair play.
If Imam and community leaders want to be informants,
paid or unpaid, they have every right to do so. But to expect the community to
spy on each other for his or her ideas is not feasible, especially when we have a different understanding of extremism.
Some Proposals
Following are some of the concrete proposals that
might help us handle the problem of extremism effectively.
1. Define
what extremism and especially Muslim extremism is? Such a definition should be
sociologically and theologically founded on strong grounds.
2. Have
a national survey of extremism within the Muslim community based on the agreed-upon definition.
3. Have
a survey of masajds and their imams and their ideas on issues identified as
extremism.
4. Effectively
engage in dialogue with law enforcement agencies in efforts to prevent
incidents of violence.
5. Commission
books and position papers on issues that have often been used by groups to promote
extremism.
6. Help
develop a democratic culture in Islamic institutions.
7. Let
women and youth occupy 75 percent of the board positions in masajids and Islamic
institutions.
8. Involve
people in the decision making-process of Islamic institutions so that more and more
people can understand the social and political environment they live in.
9. Provide
civic education to people so that they can understand their civic
responsibilities and rights.
10. Organize a conference of Imams and community leaders to discuss the issue and strategies to combat extremism.
