Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism (28 page)

Adversarial modes of engagement with the Islamic world obscure the profound and mutually enhancing interactions between the cultures and peoples on every side of the divides generated by those who objectify the “other,” whether the other is Muslim or not. There has been no more critical time than the present to bring these interactions into view. Attempting to understand – not necessarily condone – the varieties of Muslim revolutionary activities in each of their discrete contexts bears the double burden first, of trying to unravel the complexities attached to particular economic and political struggles for power, and second of trying to generate discussion, critical analysis, and debate in a context in which such rational inquiry is increasingly perceived as anti-American and unpatriotic because the complexities attached to the former have a direct bearing on the latter. For instance, an assessment of the role of colonialism, the

Cold War, and American foreign policy in the destabilization of a given region’s political economy necessarily requires students and citizens to engage in an unsettling self-examination and scrutiny of the U.S.A.’s and Europe’s role in supporting oppressive regimes and underwriting the strife, restrictions, and terror that these regimes have imposed on their own citizens. The list is endless: the Shah of Iran before the Iranian Revolution; Saddam Hussein before the Gulf War; Osama bin Laden before Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan; and so on.

The global demonization of Islam and Muslims is further facilitated by linking the “war on terrorism” with the rhetoric of evil which places entire (and almost entirely Muslim) countries on the “axis of evil.” This linkage gives
carte blanche
to governments outside the U.S.A., but who count on U.S. support, to oppress and repudiate their own Muslim minorities, who are criminalized when they show forms of resistance even when they are non-violent. Whether in Chechnya, Kashmir, or Israel and the Occupied Territories, the use of terrorism including suicide bombings as a counter-hegemonic strategy invoked by Muslims (and non-Muslims) has provided the opportunity for governments to exercise force regardless of the legitimate concerns of the populations, and to further reinforce the view that Muslims behave irrationally and violently even in self-defense. If only irrational people were willing to die for a cause, no nation would have police forces, armies, or firefighters. What is defined as terrorism and war in one context is described as revolution and the fight for freedom and independence in another. One needs to look at each specific situation to assess this question carefully. Furthermore, while terrorism and Islam have been made synonymous in the popular imagination because of sustained media and press coverage, terrorism is not unique to individuals who profess Islam. People in all parts of the world, Muslims and non-Muslims, misguidedly use terror tactics to achieve their ends and are motivated by a variety of causes including ideology, economic disparities, class conflict, poverty, injustice, oppression, and religious zeal. Terrorists can be found among the Irish Republican Army, Tamil Liberation Tigers, Sikh Khalsa, Algerian freedom fighters, Japanese Aum Shinrikyo, and others. Americans too have their home-grown terrorists in Timothy McVeigh and the Unibomber. However, while the contextual and historical factors of non- Muslim forms of revolution and terrorism have been explored by the academy, the media, and groups who have a stake in the matter, in the case of terrorists who are Muslims religion is immediately and in a facile manner made responsible for this tool of the weak on the one hand and of the tyrannical on the other.

But for scholars of Islam, at a time when civil liberties are in danger of being withdrawn to fight an all encompassing “war against terror,” the risk involved in contributing to the knowledge, analysis, and discussion of the many complexities attached to the study of Islam and those parts of the globe where political tensions are exceedingly high is immense. There is no question that terrorism as such, whether motivated for a just or an unjust cause, is unacceptable because of

the irreparable harm it does to all involved. Nor is there any question that those who commit such crimes against humanity must be brought to justice. The problem arises when the term “terrorism” is blithely used to cover all forms of revolution and resistance and when it is deliberately misused to repress legitimate voices of protest and dissent. Hence, such an open-ended war threatens to reduce access to candid investigative studies and intellectual analysis by scholars and reporters who thereby risk facing unfounded accusations of supporting terrorism on the one hand and lacking patriotism and concern for American (and global) security on the other. In the heat of conflict, it is often overlooked that the capacity for dispassionate critical self-examination is the basis of renewal and progress at both the individual and collective level. The curtailment in the U.S.A. of civil liberties such as freedom of inquiry and the expression of dissenting opinions constitutes one of the most troubling repercussions of September 11. Scholars and intellectuals have discovered that even judicious attempts to explain why there is such strong anti-American sentiment not just in parts of the Muslim world but around the globe generally are dismissed, denounced, and silenced as unpatriotic and apologetic.

For example, a report issued two months after the September 11 attack by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a conservative academic group founded by Lynne Cheney, former President of the National Endowment of the Humanities and wife of the U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney, chided forty college professors including the President of Wesleyan University for not showing enough patriotism in the aftermath of September 11 and accused college and university faculty as being “the weak link in America’s response to the attack.”
21
This censorship of diverse and dissenting views is problematic at any time, but especially so after September 11 when Americans are coming more fully to grips with their superpower status and the responsibilities that come with such power, wealth, and privilege. As Americans recognize that they can no longer live as if in a self-contained, impregnable fortress, many feel a genuine desire to comprehend the reasons for the hostility felt towards them, and the complexity of problems abroad and how these conflicts relate to American involvements in the regions in question. Hence, instead of admonishing scholars for their contributions to informed and thoughtful analysis, and for advancing sensitive and situated knowledge of other cultures, it is necessary to appreciate the urgency and importance of educating the American public – including Muslims – about the complexities involved. The fundamental question that thus looms ahead before scholars of Islam is what roles they can play to address this vital need to understand truthfully, compassionately, and critically the relation- ships between events and conditions in the Islamic and the Western world without fear of reprisal from all sides.

What is the cost of continued ignorance and mutually reinforcing stereotypes? What are the consequences of concealing or distorting facts, remaining silent when conditions are inhumane, when people suffer degradation and despair as a

consequence of economic sanctions and foreign policies, and when preachers and politicians mislead and incite their congregations and constituencies? Islamophobia on the one hand and hatred of the West on the other hand are two sides of the same coin. As Armando Salvatore argues, the antagonisms are perpetuated by a growth industry of publications, audio-visual materials, internet sites, and pop cultures on both sides that frame the Other as irrational and fanatical or imperialist and exploitative, respectively.
22
The more that Euro- American discourses and policies attack and distort Islam and Muslims, the more fuel this provides to Islamic extremists to generate their own anti-Western rhetoric and provocations. So much so that it is perhaps true to say that these constructions mutually create and sustain each other. The Algerian Muslim philosopher and critic Mohammed Arkoun argues that we need both to criticize and to expose the mythologization and ideologization of Islam by militants, state-sponsored
‘ulama
, and Muslim apologists; and at the same time, to criticize the static and fragmented portrait of Islam given by many Western scholars and Orientalists “under the pretext that they are only faithfully transcribing the discourse, both ancient and contemporary, that Muslims have generated about their own religion.”
23

Orientalist conceptions of Islamic radicalism have at their heart a picture of “an Islam in movement, where the movement is prompted by basically irrational impulses to turn ‘religion’ into ‘politics.’”
24
The views of Orientalists are mirrored and matched by equivalent revolutionary self-images within Islamist movements which insist upon the conflation of faith and politics under the guise of an Islamic awakening. What is synopsized as “Islam” by Orientalists and Islamists (both totalizing terms in need of further qualifications) alike is thus a fringe, revisionist, ideological, post-colonial phenomenon ironically supported by the interests of an “oiligarchy.”
25
These contemporary “imaginaries” of Islam totally obscure the rich and diverse history of Islamic cultures and civilization. According to Arkoun, “the ‘imaginary’ of an individual, a social group, or a nation is the collection of images carried by that culture about itself or another culture – once the product of epics, poetry, and religious discourse, today a product primarily of the media and secondarily of the schools.”
26
Both Islamist and Orientalist imaginaries are premised upon the necessary conflation of faith and politics in Islam and any attempt to undo this identification is met with enormous resistance on both sides. To the detriment of all, hate and contempt sell. They also create conditions ripe for human rights abuses, international injustice, and global insecurity. The enormous resources expended on all sides to prop up false perceptions of the other could be put to much better use solving real problems of humanity such as hunger, disease, poverty, child abuse, women’s oppression, illiteracy, and crime.

In 1941, President Roosevelt proclaimed that four freedoms were essential for democracy (and, one might add, the global village) to flourish: (a) freedom of speech and expression; (b) freedom of worship; (c) freedom from want; and

(d) freedom from fear. It is now evident that the pursuit of these freedoms in the

1. is intimately tied to its willingness – since it has the capacity – to facilitate these same liberties in other parts of the globe. But analysis of a number of U.S. foreign policies since the foundation of this great republic indicates otherwise. Often governed by economic and geopolitical interests of the day and subject to the vagaries of internal politics, U.S. foreign policy has exhibited double standards in dealing with different nations. For example, during the Cold War, the U.S.A. encouraged and financially supported Islamist groups, but once the communist threat ceased to exist, Islamists themselves became the target. Similarly, at one time it served U.S. geopolitical interests to promote Saddam Hussein – until he posed a threat to American access to Kuwaiti oil reserves and the stability of the Middle East. U.S. foreign policy also supported autocrats like the Shah of Iran and Gamal Nasser of Egypt despite the atrocities they committed against their own peoples.
   

   Thus, for observers abroad, the standards and moral criteria exercised in U.S. dealings with other nations, if there are any, appear to be opportunistic and, since the end of the Cold War, ever more autocratic. National interests are used to justify many measures that may be at odds with humanitarian interests and international justice. For instance, a confusing signal is sent when the United States asserts that its soldiers cannot be arraigned under international law but feels no compunction in detaining in custody without due process any individual held under suspicions of terrorism.
   27
   It suggests that an American’s life is more valuable than the lives of Africans (as demonstrated in the treatment of those hurt in the bombings at the U.S. Embassy in Kenya), ordinary Iraqis (whose children suffer the consequence of U.S.-enforced sanctions), and Afghanis who first served as U.S. foot soldiers in the war against the Soviets only to be abandoned when they were no longer needed, thereby creating a vacuum and an opportunity for the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. A critical examination of many U.S. foreign policies reveals a double standard that all human beings are not, in fact, conceived of as equal in respect to the individual’s right to life, liberty, justice, and happiness. The freedoms and protections spoken of by Roosevelt are all too often the privilege of but a few. Simply in terms of changing demographics, sustaining these stark disparities in basic quality of life factors between the rich and powerful and the poor and weak is growing untenable in this global village.
   28
   Although Americans have diverse views on these policies and there is vigorous debate and disagreement as well as criticism of them, it is not difficult to see why observers of U.S. foreign policy, especially those adversely affected by it, develop feelings of hostility, mistrust, and anger towards the U.S.A. The fact that the U.S.A. is the sole superpower also leads to the opinion that its unilateral policies and conduct are an abuse of its superpower status.
   

   Already, the consequences for Americans who rightly pride themselves for their hard-won rights and freedoms have been adverse. Many Americans keenly
   

   feel this conflict between safeguarding national security interests and civil liberties. It must not be forgotten that before September 11, the worst act of terrorism committed on U.S. soil was by an American citizen, Timothy McVeigh, a Christian and a decorated soldier in the U.S. Army who served in the Gulf War. Whereas the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma did not leave a scar on Christianity and condemn all Americans as violent, September 11 has unfairly been allowed to demonize Muslims, revile the Islamic faith, and castigate the Arab world. To protect its national and security interests, the U.S.A. also needs to pay attention to the concerns of its own dispossessed and dejected citizens who struggle against a system that benefits some sectors of society and marginalizes others. The status of the United States as the world’s only superpower is less than two decades old, and the nation’s extraordinary success is premised on the cherished principles of liberty, fairness, democracy, meritocracy, justice, freedom of inquiry, and protection of civil rights. However, in an increasingly interdependent globe, can the U.S.A. sustain an imperialistic outlook without sacrificing some of these very principles? If the dialogue of the deaf between the West and the rest continues, it is likely to lead to a decrease of civil liberties as Americans are expected to give them up, albeit begrudgingly, to protect their security interests. The massive surveillance apparatus being implemented under the newly established office of Homeland Security shows that September 11 has effected a siege mentality in the U.S. Republican government. Clearly, other constructive alternatives are necessary, such as a concerted focus on economic aid and development strategies that place common human interests at the forefront and offer all societies hope and confidence in the future.
   

   In conclusion, the multiple roles of teacher, scholar, critic, advocate, public intellectual, media expert, policy advisor, human rights activist, and so on bring into focus the enormous responsibilities that were suddenly and unwittingly assumed by many scholars of Islam after September 11. In addition to teaching and doing research, scholars of Islam tried to make substantive contributions to the public’s understanding of the rich history, diversity, and complexity of the Islamic world, which are intimately intertwined with those of European and Asian civilizations. They shouldered the obligations of public intellectuals to explain highly complex matters such as the genesis of conflicts within the Muslim world, to examine the multiple interactions between former colonial and neo-colonial powers and their subjects, and to link larger issues of civil society, international justice, and political economies to U.S. foreign policy, aid, and investments in other parts of the globe. To promote intellectual exchanges within spaces of tolerance and civility, they have had to bring into conversation the obstructive perceptual frameworks generated by Muslims and non-Muslims. In speaking truth to power, they have had to be able to question, analyze, and critique adversarial discourses and activities of both the Euro-American and the Muslim worlds.
   

   Clearly, there are severe risks and consequences involved for academics, intellectuals, and critical and dissenting voices who speak up in countries whose state apparatus underwrites education, research, and the media. Muslim intellectuals in other parts of the world who have not towed the party line have been persecuted or incarcerated or have paid with their lives.
   29
   Salman Rushdie’s definition of freedom of expression would be unthinkable in those contexts and yet it remains vital in order to sustain a participatory democracy: “What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist. Without freedom to challenge, even satirize all orthodoxies, including religious orthodoxies, it ceases to exist.”
   30
   It can only be hoped that the conditions for free and open inquiry will remain robust in the U.S.A. for scholars and academics to work their balancing act between the equally oppressive forces of Islamic obscurantism and Western demonization. In the embattled atmosphere of current events where emotions run high, there is an urgent need to find ways to communicate sensitively about very contentious matters without inflaming the situation further but at the same time without remaining silent about (and complicit in) the multiplicity of factors that contribute to it. To create discourses of the middle way, scholars of Islam must keep working at two major problems that seem insurmountable at times, namely, resisting the polarizing and generalizing language used for discussing contentious issues and continually addressing the lack of specific historical and cultural knowledge in the Western world about Islamic civilization and in the Islamic world about Western civilization.
   

   endnotes
   

   1. I have deliberately avoided the use of the term “Islamicist” since it has taken on meanings which obfuscate its usual reference to an “Islamic (special)ist.” For instance, even the usually reliable and astute Ahmed Rashid incorrectly uses the term “Islamicist” instead of “Islamist” when he writes, “The Islamicists denigrated tribal structure in pursuit of radical political ideology in order to bring about an Islamic revolution in Afghanistan.”
      Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia
      (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 19. Another instance of this confusion was Jerry Falwell’s reference to a respected scholar of Islamic studies, Michael Sells, as an “Islamist” instead of “Islamicist.” Falwell objected to assigning Sells’s book
      Approaching the Qur’an: The Early Revelations
      as required reading for all incoming freshmen at the University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill. See “Hypocrisy in Education,” July 31, 2002,
      BP News
      (www.BPNews.net). In the court documents submitted by the group suing UNC for this requirement, “Islamicist” has been defined as “someone who is sympathetic to or subscribes to Islam.” This further muddles the meaning of this term, ascribing to it the connotation of religious affiliation rather than academic qualification. In academic usage, “Islamicist” usually refers to an academic who specializes in Islamic studies, whereas “Islamist” usually refers to those who use Islam as an ideology for engaging in revolutionary and/or extremist activities. “Muslim” simply refers to one who professes Islam as a personal faith. The
      Oxford English Dictionary
      states that “Islamist” can refer to an “orthodox Muslim” or to “an expert on Islam.” Given these confusions, it may be necessary to develop another academic designation such as “Islamologist” to replace “Islamicist.”
      

   2. In particular, the list-serve of members of the Study of Islam section of the American Academy of Religion ([email protected]) exchanged information and resources and discussed many issues subsequent to the event. Also see the website created by Omid Safi at http://groups.colgate.edu/aarislam/response.htm
      . The site includes a statement by the members of the Study of Islam section, documents the reactions of Muslims and non-Muslims around the globe, and provides links to useful resources about September 11.
      

   3. At the outset, it is important to problematize the notion of Islam as a singular, undifferentiated phenomenon. Properly speaking, scholars have expertise in a few of the multiple forms and expressions of Muslim communities that have existed within specific historical and geographical contexts. In this article, while the word “Islam” is used, properly speaking, it may be more accurate and appropriate to use “islams” to resist the totalizing connotation of Islam as a homogeneous entity.
      

   4. Bernard Lewis gave currency to phrases such as “Muslim rage” and “the clash of civilizations” which have been picked up by journalists and policy analysts such as Samuel Huntington. See Bernard Lewis, “The Roots of Muslim Rage,”
      Atlantic Monthly
      , September 1990, 52–60; Samuel Huntington,
      The Clash of Civilizations: Remaking of the World Order
      (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996); and Martin Kramer,
      Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America
      (Washington: Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy, 2001).
      

   5. An interesting study would be to look at how Muslims and other minorities who resist their own governments in countries around the world have become the target of state oppression on the basis of their alleged terrorist activities (which might involve unarmed resistance or civil disobedience). Soon after the U.S.A. declared its “war on terrorism,” the Bush administration released a list of terrorist organizations and put on notice any country that harbored such groups. Undoubtedly, this move, which was primarily intended to demolish the al-Qaeda and similar networks, was a critical step in securing a safer world. However, the Bush administration’s list of terrorist groups has given governments cause to pursue their own interests against sections of the population who oppose them for a variety of reasons. For example, one of the groups on the terrorist list is the Lord’s Resistance Army, a quasi-religious movement that mixes Christianity with African spiritualism located in the remote bushland of Uganda. The conflict between government forces and rebels had cooled down, but after the list was released the Ugandan government announced Operation Iron Fist, its version of the American war in Afghanistan, to root out the rebels. Since the fighting resumed between the rebels and government forces, half a million people have been displaced and tens of thousands have been killed. A Roman Catholic Archbishop who is trying to bring about a peaceful settlement aptly said, “When two elephants battle, the grass is what suffers.” Marc Lacey, “Uganda’s Terror Crackdown Multiplies Suffering,”
      New York Times
      , August 4, 2002.
      

   6. In his book
      What’s so Great about America
      (Washington: Regnery, 2002), D’Souza argues that George Bush’s and Tony Blair’s attempts to resist the identification of Islam and terrorism is misguided because Islam, that is, the faith itself, is a threat to America, for it provides the rationalization and rewards for terrorists to engage in their attacks.
      

   7. For discussions of European views of the Muslim worlds, see: Edward Said,
      Orientalism
      (New York: Vintage, 1979); Maxime Rodinson,
      Europe and the Mystique of Islam
      , trans. by Roger Veinus (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1987); Norman Daniel,
      Islam and the West: The Making of an Image
      (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1960); and Benjamin Kedar,
      Crusade and Mission: European Approaches to the Muslims
      (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).
      

   8. “Some details of this fantasy reflect Christian anxieties about their own emergent identity. Islam was stigmatized as the ‘religion of the sword’ during the Crusades, a period when Christians themselves must have had a buried worry about this aggressive form of their faith which bore no relation to the pacifist message of Jesus.” Karen Armstrong,
      Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet
      (New York: HarperCollins, 1992), 27.
      

   9. Interview with Karen Armstrong, “The Feel of Religion,” by Omayma Abdel-Latef,
      al-Ahram Weekly Online
      , 593, 2002, www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2002/593/intrvw.htm
      

   10. Edward Said, “Impossible Histories: Why the Many Islams Cannot Be Simplified,”
       Harper’s Magazine
       , July 2002, 70.
       

   11. The Council for Islamic Education (www.cie.org) was founded by Shabbir Mansuri to address the lack of reliable information on Islamic cultures in primary and secondary education. The Council has worked closely with publishers on addressing the quality of materials on Islamic civilization found in primary and secondary school textbooks. In a video on
       Islam in America
       produced by the
       Christian Science Monitor
       , Mansuri relates that he decided to found this organization when he saw his daughter’s eighth-grade social sciences textbook. The chapter on Islam was introduced with a picture of a camel whereas chapters on other cultures began with a picture of a key historical figure.
       

   12. Grassroots Muslim organizations such as the Council on American–Islamic Relations have made an effort to address this problem by giving seminars to teachers, administrators, and curriculum writers. For further information, visit its website at http://www.cair-net.org.
       

   13. Songwriter and country singer Steve Earle has released a song titled “John Walker’s Blues” which tries to figure out why John Walker Lindh decided to fight alongside the Taliban. The song begins, “I’m just an American boy raised on MTV/ and I’ve seen all those kids in the soda pop ads/ but none of ’em looked like me,” and concludes, “Now they’re dragging me back/ with my head in a sack/ to the land of infidel.” For more songs touching on September 11, see Kris Axtman, “Patriotism vs. Protest,”
       Christian Science Monitor
       , July 31, 2002, www.csmonitor.com/2002/0731/p03s01-ussc.html
       

   14. This is particularly evident in the pamphlets produced and circulated by Islamic groups in the West for proselytizing (
       da‘wa
       and
       tabligh
       ) activities. The materials normalize, ritualize, and standardize this diverse faith into a uniform mold through a process that might be called the “five-pillarization” of Islam.
       

   15. Rashid I. Khalidi, “Edward Said and the American Public Sphere: Speaking Truth to Power,” in
       Edward Said and the Work of the Critic: Speaking Truth to Power
       , ed. Paul A. Bove (Durham, NC Duke University Press, 2000), 154.
       

   16. A search of titles on amazon.com with words including “Islamic threat,” “terror,” “jihad,” “fundamentalism,” “politics,” etc. gives a sobering idea of the extent of publications available in this genre.
       

   17. Rev. Jerry Vines, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, “called Muhammad a ‘demon-possessed pedophile,’ asserting that his 12th and final wife was a 9-year-old girl, and declared that Muslims worshiped a different God than Christians.” See Susan Sachs, “Baptist Pastor Attacks Islam, Inciting Cries of Intolerance,”
       New York Times
       , June 15, 2002.
       

   18. The Algerian philosopher Mohammed Arkoun argues that among the many unthinkables in traditionalist and conservative Islamist discourses is to analytically reflect upon the nature of the Qur’an before it became a fixed corpus. Even to raise questions regarding the historical formation of a closed corpus is blasphemous, for it would signify a time in Islamic history when the “timeless” Qur’an was not as it is known and handled by Muslims (and non-Muslims) today, namely, a total, fixed, divinely sealed text. For further discussion, see Mohammed Arkoun,
       The Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought
       (London: Saqi, 2002), especially chapter 1, “A Critical Introduction to Qur’anic Studies,” 37–65.
       

   19. Numbers are hard to nail down, but reportedly some three thousand Afghans lost their lives as a result of “collateral damage,” thousands were maimed in the war and countless others displaced by it. Afghans continue to suffer as the U.S. military forces “accidentally” strike targets suspected of harboring al-Qaeda forces. For instance, an American plane bombarded a village in southern Afghanistan on July 1, 2002 and killed forty-eight people, mostly women and children, and injured 117 people who had gathered for a wedding party. For the full report see Carlotta Gall, “Expecting Taliban, but Finding only Horror,”
       New York Times
       , July 8, 2002.
       

   20. For instance, President Bush was “furious” and “outraged” by the Palestinian bomb that killed seven students, including Americans, at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, but merely chided Israel for its “heavy-handedness” when Israeli forces killed eleven Palestinians including seven children while targeting Sheikh Salah Shehadeh, a Hamas leader in Gaza. For the report, see Suzanne Goldenberg, “12 Dead in Attack on Hamas: Seven Children Killed as Israelis Assassinate Military Chief,” the
       Guardian
       , July 23, 2002.
       

   21. Patrick Healy, “Conservatives Denounce Dissent,”
       Boston Globe
       , November 13, 2002. The full report can be found online at http://www.goacta.org
       . In astonishing remarks made on multiculturalism on October 5, 2001, Lynne Cheney actually criticized the call for greater understanding of Islam.
       

   22. Armando Salvatore,
       Islam and the Political Discourse of Modernity
       (Reading, NY: Ithaca Press, 1997), xvii.
       

   23. Mohammed Arkoun,
       Rethinking Islam: Common Questions, Uncommon Answers
       , trans. Robert D. Lee (Boulder: Westview Press: 1994), 2.
       

   24. Salvatore, op. cit., xvi.
       

   25. This term was used by Woody Harrelson (who played Woody Boyd in the TV show
       Cheers
       ), in an interview with Tim Cooper. Harrelson was describing his views on the U.S. handling of September 11 and said, “Blaming things on Bush is like blaming the hood ornament on a car on the accident [
       sic
       ]. It’s his whole ‘oiligarchy’ – that’s what I like to call it. They have a certain agenda. It’s all about oil, it’s all about money. And the voice of dissent? It’s a frightening time in America.”
       Hot Tickets Magazine
       , July 19–25, 2002.
       

   26. See Arkoun’s discussion of the Western “imaginary” of Islam in
       Rethinking Islam
       , 6–13.
       

   27. Attorney General John Ashcroft “vowed to use the full might of the federal government” and “every available statute” to hunt down and punish “the terrorists among us.” This resulted in the detention of twelve hundred people suspected of violating immigration laws and having some connection to the terrorists. Not surprisingly, “the government’s effort has produced few if any law enforcement coups. Most of the detainees have since been released or deported, with fewer than 200 still being held.” Adam Liptak, Neil A. Lewis and Benjamin Weise, “After September 11, a Legal Battle over the Limits of Civil Liberty,” by
       New York Times
       , August 4, 2002.
       

   28. It is a sobering fact that the average woman in Yemen can be expected to have seven children in her lifetime. If birthrates remain the same for three generations, she will have forty-nine grandchildren, 343 great-grandchildren, and 2500 great-great-grandchildren. In comparison, the average family in many parts of Europe and the U.S.A. is barely more than one child. An American mother will have one grandchild, one to two great grandchildren, and two to three great-great-grandchildren. Source:
       Religious Consultation Report
       , 5(2), 2, www.religiousconsultation.org/
       

   29. To give but one example: in July 2002, Mr Sa‘ad Eddin Ibrahim, who holds a U.S. passport, was sentenced to seven years’ hard labor by a court in Egypt for promoting democracy. This ill sixty-three-year-old man’s crime was that his Institute at the American University in Cairo was helping Egyptians learn how to register to vote, fill out a ballot, and monitor an election. The State Department said it was “deeply disappointed” by Mr Ibrahim’s conviction. Reporting on this, Thomas Friedman says, “Disappointed? I’m disappointed when the Baltimore Orioles lose. When an Egyptian president we give $2 billion a year to jails a pro-American democracy advocate, I’m ‘outraged’ and expect America to do something about it.” Thomas Friedman, “Bush’s Shame,”
       New York Times
       , August 4, 2002.