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SPEAKING DATES

Rabbi Harold Schulweis and Mr. Jack Miles-UCLA 2003

INTERFAITH

groupdialog.org/humanrights/May22flyer.htm

http://www.shuracouncil.org/calendar/default.asp?addevent=detail&id=759

http://www.cjs.ucla.edu/events/Events_2003_2004.htm

http://asstudents.unco.edu/students/AE-Extra/2005/2/Art-1.html

http://religion-society.blogspot.com/2004_10_17_religion-society_archive.html

http://www.kehillatisrael.org/calendar.php?year=2005&month=11&day=17

http://www.psr.edu/pana.cfm?m=233

http://www.baylor.edu/pr/news.php?action=story&story=4168

Anti-Semitism, and Contemporary Islam

University Of Judaism Conference, October 2004

Mehnaz M. Afridi

Bismillah irrahman nir rahim (The name of God the most merciful, and beneficial)

Memo by M.A. Muqtedar Khan at Adrian College After September 11^{th, 2001}

I would like to thank Dr. Michael Berenbaum who has given me the honor of being part of this crucial conference, although I must admit, I was delighted but also slightly anxious about accepting the invitation. The delight, honor, and anxiety stem from my personal experience of having lived in various places such as; Europe, Pakistan, Middle East and now in the United States as a Muslim woman but the constant state of being othered within one’s own community and in other’s communities. Having lived within such an intermingling of so many cultures but still marked with the profound sense that I am a Muslim, a Muslim woman who is marked by the submission to God faithfully yet someone who does not claim a singular truth or possession to Islam which to me is as diverse as the many cultures that I have experienced throughout my life. I also want to make clear that I do not possess all multiple qualities that classify the images of Muslims nor can I represent all Muslims but simply that I am one voice amongst the billion voices of Islam all over the world.

I want to make two vital points before I begin my attempt at a paper on “Anti-Semitism and Contemporary Islam”. These personal nuances I hope will encompass and frame my talk today. I consider myself an optimist and since most optimists exit with hope, let me then first begin with why I felt anxious about this presentation but also a joyful delight and hope for Jewish –Muslim relations.

Real dialogue, I believe between traditions begins with the willingness of the participants even if from a position of fear, helplessness, disempowerment to accept the vulnerability and “truths” that all of us believe in but most importantly, how to create a new manner of imagining two traditions like Judaism and Islam that seem to be taut with mistrust, fear, and fragility where we can unhinge, break and kill at a spoken word, attitude, name calling and many deep misunderstandings. Therefore, to simply state that there is in fact anti-Semitism from various Muslim perspectives is to ignore the wider and dangerous misunderstandings from both the Jewish and Muslim perspective. I was/am anxious to speak as a Muslim about Anti-Semitism because not only do I experience Muslim anti-Semitism but also Jewish anti-Semitism all over the world as I seek out fellow Muslims and Jews to discuss my own work on contemporary Judaism and Islam. I begin with the sad assumption that there exists anti-Semitism everywhere in the world and within many Muslim communities globally on various levels whether religious, political, economic, racial, and social.

So, where do I stand and how can I stand comfortably in front of an audience and tell a new story that you may already have heard for thousands of years? What can I shed light upon which may become a start of a fresh dialogue but also way of taking responsibility for anti Semitism as a Muslim? And at the same time deconstructing the image that all Muslims are in fact anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish and believe that the Jews are infidels? I am caught by the anguish of both communities and feel that as a Muslim I may be able to illuminate some theological and contemporary perspectives on Anti-Semitism in a self-critique of Islam. It is important to note that not all Muslims are anti-Israel but by openly accepting the state of Israel as a viable and independent state, there can be a relief and a small light of hope. My link with Israel as a young student at Hebrew university with a Pakistani passport clarified that both Palestinians and Israelis have deep theological and personal rooted ness within Israel. I went to Israel to learn about Jews and the revelations of the Jewish tradition from the Jewish perspective and this was an important lesson that revealed to me that reading the Torah and the covenantal promise of the land of Israel left me in a position that I could in fact support the existence of Israel, and a land which Jews could finally call their own after the horror of the Holocaust as a state but my experience was also influenced by the Palestinian poverty, border restrictions, mistrust of Palestinians, and the inequality of possession, this allowed me to see both sides as creating a gulf of mistrust, fear and antagonism.

I will propose today as best as I can to see how anti-Semitism is interpreted from extreme interpretations of texts, and the political arena and how Muslims can fall into a gruesome justification. Is this justification theological? Inherent in the politics of Israel and Palestine? Myths of Jewish Conspiracies? Religious denunciations? Power dynamics within minor religious communities of Jews and Muslims? And the list goes on and on, and for the sake of this conference I have decided to stay within both the classical and modern periods of Islam, I felt that discussing Classical Islam can perhaps shed some light on the discussion of the roots that Islam may be read by some as anti-Semitic and the interpretation from the Muslim literalist perspective and how both classical and contemporary Muslims have reconstructed and deconstructed such rooted beliefs today. My question, though is what type of Muslim/Jewish anti-Semitism are we experiencing today, and are we Jews and Muslims experiencing similar patterns or a different form? Or is this hatred an impossible impasse to undo? I am interested in these questions through an analysis of some of the commonly anti-Jewish verse of the Qu’ran, and it’s interpretation, and why many Jews are seen as political allies of the West on the war on Terrorism that have seen as been part of the loss many innocent Muslim lives in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine. Similarly, the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe, United States, Israel and many Muslim countries has consumed the lives of innocent Jews, and how Jews might see themselves mistrusting Muslims, a fear of the anti-Semitism and the Qu’ran as particularly violent to their own communities.

This is the paradox for me and deeply problematic where I can feel the hardships and misgivings of being both Jewish and Muslim at the same time and accept the revelations of these traditions as mine even if I were born Muslim and remain to be one. On a more positive note, I think that if we can flesh out the problems on both ends of these perceptions then we may be able to have some meaningful dialogue and understanding. The practice of self-criticism, listening to how others understand their own scriptures, the right to ask embarrassing questions and to quote from one’s own sacred text even if one is embarrassed is to make our first step to Muslim and Jewish Relations in a world that has portrayed us as long standing enemies even though we have been pulled apart by the loss of innocent lives since the creation of the state of Israel on both Jewish and Muslim sides (not to ignore Christian and secular lives).

My second point on why I am delighted to be here is as important if not more, I need to be here, more Muslims need to be here and more Muslims need to speak out against anti-Semitism which I believe has been left up to an uncanny silence or the” extremists” who have stolen our own interpretation and blind folded many Muslims even in America, this silence is one that left so many great Jewish post shoah writers to teach us that silence is itself the perpetrator of murder, genocide, war, anti-Semitism that has left an indelible mark of so much horror past, present and future. Therefore as a Muslim I am happy and honored to be amongst some of the most distinguished scholars in the field of Judaism and as a Muslim this moment is a positive indication that yes! Yes! Yes! There is hope and we must continue this type of discussion and dialogue.

I begin with a quote from Richard Rubenstein in his book After Auschwitz, which has resonated with me since I was an undergraduate student at Syracuse University he writes:

When we finish The Plague, we are aware of the fact that this solidarity is the deepest root of Camus’s atheism. He refuses, as does Ivan Karamazov, to see man as inevitable and inescapably guilty before God. He accepts the tragedy, the inevitability, and the gratuitous absurdity of suffering, but he refuses to consent to its justice. He would rather live in the absurd, indifferent cosmos in which men suffer and die meaninglessly but still retain a measure of tragic integrity than see every last human event encased in a pitiless framework of meaning which deprives men of consolation that suffering, though inevitable, is not entirely merited or earned. (Rubenstein, After Auschwitz, p.67)

This statement sustains that the suffering of human beings is inextricably linked with both atheism and religion or the identifiable human being lies in an inevitable vulnerable position with or even without god. Therefore, we humans regardless of faith and identity are vulnerable to death, suffering and meaninglessness.

As Muslims we believe in a very important concept like our Jewish cousins that defines the one ness of God in the manner of Tawhid, Tawhid, which encapsulates God as the one, only one, and God who is everywhere and anywhere. Muslims see this as the absolute oneness of god: the first principle, creator of all, eternally present in history and at each moment. This is the cornerstone of Islam but also within Judaism, which presupposes that human beings have to rely on themselves to recognize where and how God is but one cannot fully grasp or to know or hold God. As the Jews believe that “God is the creator of the universe, with which he made the a covenant to sustain it. God appointed humanity to be stewards of nature (Genesis 2:15) and made a covenant, stands above nature as its steward but under god as its lord.” Similarly, Camus’s character in The Plague had taken in human suffering and realized that to justify death and give innocent suffering meaning was to accept injustice on innocence yet the religious community that Jews and Muslims rely upon are not always justifiable but perhaps what Camus fails to see is how it gives them meaning. I start with a problem of meaning and justice because Judaism has a profound tradition in undertaking these two moral precepts and similarly Islam even in it’s understanding of death and suffering has offered up a meaning that has to rely on a justice that human beings cannot come to on their own but through their reliance on God. I begin with the central commonality of Judaism and Islam as both submitting to the idea of the one god but also that individuals with the guidance of prophecy, context, compassion and forgiveness may decide to proceed with their own life, as they will with the direction of God. Therefore, Muslims and Jews are not Gods but the carriers of the messages of God that live by example as Fackenheim has said:

“If he remains frozen in stark terror, he cannot observe the commandments at all. And, if he evades that terror, he may observe the commandments, but he has lost the divine commanding presence. Only by reenacting both the terror and joy can he participate in a life of commandments which lives before the sole Power and yet is human.” (Fackenhaeim, p.16)

It is a fact and not a myth that there are unfavorable verses towards Jews, Christians and non-Muslims in the Qu’ran, paradoxically there are positive and favorable verses in the acceptance of Jews, Christians, Sabeans and others. It is important to know that the Qu’ran can be interpreted like the Torah, and the Bible without the knowledge of the wider body of legal and theological Islamic literature which is commonly known as Tafsir which is interpretation relying on several sources that recount the story of Mohammed, the first is the Hadith then Sira or even the Sunna. Similarly, the Jewish tradition, one can rely on the Talmud, Mishnah and Gemara for parallel understanding of Tafsir, which even Islamic scholars in the 8th century, relied upon to make sense of revelation and inconsistent chronological order to the Qu’ranic manuscript. Verses in any tradition do not stand on their own without context, and the meanings of these verses after they are contextualized must be further read as much more nuanced and sophisticated than the literal meaning of any verse. To rely on verses that have no context historically that state that the Muslim must either Conquer, Kill, dictate, and convert any others is to be ignorant of the particular context. This is not an apology for the extremist that do in fact transform the literalism and command of submission to death, anti-Semitism or even anti-Christian doctrine, it is however always useful to take an example of this type of hyperbolic interpretation and put in a new reading or even a context that allows for the interpreter to seek justice. Herein lies the paradox that one can read within Islam, how can a religion accept other faiths and reject them simultaneously? How can Muslims “justify” as Camus could not the reference to violence? Like the Jewish tradition, we find this type of violence with earlier groups in Deuteronomy and also in the most important story of the Akedah where Abraham is asked to sacrifice his own son Isaac, do Jews then interpret these narratives as literalists as well? In the Qu’ran one may find the following example, which seems to paradoxically lend itself to extreme interpretations by some Muslims to see the Jew or others as enemies and a justification to mistrust. Sadly, this type of justification has been carried out by too many Muslims today that do in fact literally believe in the Jew as an enemy and Israel as the deepest problem of the Muslim psyche and this is carried out in email exchanges, interviews, on websites, video tapes between extremists such as Osama bin Laden, Al-Zawahiri, the Iraqi insurgents who justify beheadings, and the suicide attacks all over the world. Neither Beheadings nor suicide attacks are permitted in Islam especially in the face of innocent murder and martyrdom. This horror must be condemned and in the face of Islam and cannot be justified through any case even when the Israeli military has used its might against Palestinians, and the US has killed innocent civilians in the time of war. Let me be clear: Anti-Semitism and Anti-Americanism by Muslim extremists cannot be justified by actions committed against them, the Qu’ran and Mohammed has forbidden the loss of innocent lives at any cost.

Herein, lies the problem of how do Muslims see Jews and the west, and how does the Qu’ran lie in a vulnerable position with human interpretation that have a presupposed intent and rage against others. Let me share a few verses with you to try to explicate what the Qu’ran says, and in what connect which is the paradox of me as a Muslim.

Sura 2:109

This verse was written when Mohammed had encountered Jews in Medina and shows the growing Muslim Polity. Then the next suras are important in the differences of opinion but acceptance of Jews especially in this case.

The first verse refers to The Children of Israel but treachery here represents a transition from the Jews. So here we see a small example of both chronological but referent difference. The last verse which is important in looking at Muslim –Jewish relations is in Sura 29:46

Mohammed expected many Jewish communities of Medina to accept the Monotheistic revelation that he believed was the same as Moses but it had transformed and changed through the people and transmitted again through Jesus Esau. These verses show how interpreters can find a manner in which if one were forced to rely only on the sacred text, the commandments of restraints is much more emphasized rather than war or killing of others. However, the danger of anti-Semitism from a Muslim perspective can be exacerbated within the period of classical Islam when Mohammed led battles for defense against the Kafirs, which many translate as infidels or miscreants. Tariq Ramadan has explained it in the following manner:

Even though these verses seem to become monotonous in condemning the non-Muslims they are verses that call forth for a deeper analysis that Muslims need to reconsider in their own interpretations but also a requirement for all Muslims. For Muslims it is ordained that they should not deafen their ears or ignore their own interpretation since Allah has called them to do so. As Ramadan goes on to point out that “Kafir is one who is a denier with a veiled heart: this refers to those whose original longing for the Transcendental had been stifled, veiled, shut of in their hearts to the extent that they deny the present of the creator” (Ramadan, 206) Therefore, the translations that block our perspective is that most human beings do indeed believe in the creator and in Islam, which has two meanings the first simply those who submit to a creator which may include under this definition, Hindus, Buddhists, etc and the second meaning of Islam is for those who accept the Qu’ran as revelation and Mohammed as the last prophet which is a meaning that most literalist have interpreted. One might see this as justifications for relieving the burden from Muslims but this is where my anxiety of being a Muslim and Islam as the path to peace is no longer a domain where I can feel fully proud. As I move along in these different interpretations by some very recent Muslim scholars however, the paradox of the Islam today is that it has somehow been silenced by it’s literalism towards others like Jews and also been imaged as having a dominating clerical call for concepts such as Jihad, conversion, killing the infidel, suicides, beheadings, and the negligence of allowing others to enter into the fore to complexity and reinterpret the Islamic intellectual philosophy that is the important aspect of being Muslim. The first call to submit was to God, and the second was to do moral good and protect one’s belief in the creator. Camus, would argue with me here that this type of theological dimension or reinterpretation may lead to more unjustifiable acts and away from justice however what we can learn from some of these Qu’ranic verses is that we humans are the interpreters and that perhaps Muslims are feeling the unjustifiable desperation through death but also the death of their own faith. As Amin Maalouf has written:

Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Islam:

I would like to note that there are many Muslims that have condemned suicide attacks, beheadings, what has been termed terrorism and numerous statements have infiltrated the media in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East but there are many Muslims who have been silenced by the international political scene all over the world and committing crimes against humanity by defending, justifying or even accusing the victims for the alliances with the US, Israel, Iraq, Serbia, and India. As a Muslim in America, there is a social contract that we sign with Americans as a country with regulations that allows for religious freedom but also for the freedom of speech, this allowance and democracy should and must become a vehicle for American Muslims to speak out against injustices especially towards our Jewish cousins, this I believe is a lesson that we have to begin to learn. This should disturb Muslims deeply and question their own roles as representative Muslims here in America that should come out and condemn the horrific killings of innocence whether in Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Iraq, Sudan, Pakistan and now in Indonesia. A cycle of violence that has somersaulted into what now the majority of non-Muslims believe is the nature of all Muslim people whether violent, apologetic and polemic. This is appalling and embarrassing but the deeper issue is that many Muslims do in fact feel that the Jewish world community of about 18 million is in alignment with the United States and has become the “Zionist” enemy who will want to oppress the Muslims. However, I would argue that today most Muslims do not hold contempt for Judaism but the actions of both the Israeli and American governments. Unfortunately, Jews have experienced this type of anti-Semitism and hatred in Europe for hundreds of years even before the Holocaust. Some had make claims on the culpability of some Catholics who condemned Jews for the death of Christ, others Nazism, some Fascism, and simply the horror to use Hannah Arendt’s words “the banality of evil” that pours forth from all of us at various times within history.

Let me flesh out some email exchanges that have galvanized the internet and the Muslim perspective that has been a place of justification, jihad and defense of Muslim extremists who have polarized the Muslim community in many ways that shattered the hope that non-Muslims could indeed see Islam as a diverse, rich, just, and peaceful faith and Muslims as human beings who are not steeped in violence but trying to struggle with the violence themselves.

As a Muslim, the anguish of reading the newspaper everyday, watching suicide bombings and simultaneously knowing that 70,000 Iraqi civilians have died, 1 million Sudanese displaced, thousands of Israelis and Palestinians have died, one can only feel that one’s banner of faith is as guilty as humanity is for all of it’s crimes. However, I think it is useful to share some extremely violent and salafist email exchanges that can draw out this type of extreme violence from group of Muslims who feel justified in murder.

I want to share some of these postings that have been referenced in Gilles Kepel’s most recent book The War For Muslim Minds: Islam and The West:

Here we witness Osama and Zawihiri’s call to prohibit Muslims from trying to live peacefully and deal with others with respect that would rather succumb to a victim hood of the many unfortunate circumstances that have befallen upon Muslims, but violence is not the answer and the silence is the perpetrator of such an extreme vision of terror.

The rise of anti-Semitism is a problem for Jews and Muslims; innocent victims are being terrorized because of the proclamations of both extreme Jewish and Muslim perspectives on each other’s motive. How can such proclamations be accepted when Islam accepts Jews and Christians as valid sacred religions given through the same god, even at the time of Mohammed he sanctioned peace with Jews and Christians. And today, the contemporary situation has worsened by the religious alliances, memory of injustices, and economic inequality.