July 24, 2012
Q&A with the 'Ground Zero' Imam
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DP: So the question is: why has [all this Muslim violence] arisen? You gave the nation-state problem but the nation-state has risen for all these religions, but only within Islam has this [violence] been happening. Also, every free country in the world has been deeply influenced by Christianity or by Christians. But I can’t think of a free country that developed that was primarily influenced by Islam. Why is that?
IR: There is a belief among many Muslims that since the attack on Baghdad in the thirteenth century, the Muslim world had gone through its Dark Ages. Libraries were burned and we have been on the defensive. In fact people have written about Muslims being victims of colonialism and other powers, that we have been going through very much of our Dark Ages and what we need today is a Renaissance of the Islam which peaked during the 8th to 12th century where we triumphed (??) all books of the world, we added to knowledge. And in Cordoba, within Spain, where the interaction between Jews and Muslims and Christians was such that people came to Cordoba and studied, and all the books, even the books of the stoics were translated from Arabic into Latin, then into their various European languages which led to the European Enlightenment and Renaissance. And we need today our own Enlightenment and Renaissance because we had it, you know, some eight hundred years ago, or even less.
DP: Is it at all dispiriting to you that, to the extent that there was a great Muslim period that it was eight hundred years ago? It’s been a lot of time. And during that time, the vast majority of time, Islam was not at all under siege.
How do you feel when telling me, “We need a renaissance, we in Islam, we need a renaissance to re-establish what we had eight hundred years ago”?
Moreover, Islam’s decline, which you would acknowledge, did not occur because of being under siege. It was Islam that had authority over non-Muslims for the vast majority of that period. And even those Muslims that were colonized – well, Hindus were colonized as much as Muslims and India produced a thriving democracy. Maybe, and I know it’s painful but all of us have to engage in this, maybe there is a problem in some basic aspects of Islam which I think can be dealt with by people of good will within Islam, but how do you deal with that?
IR: Your question is legitimate and people have been saying this for the last century. People have been decrying and we need a renaissance in Islam. That is what has led to these movements which have been asking for an Islamic state. But the fact is, we have this problem, and there are countries like Malaysia, that have had a democracy, and Tunisia is beginning to have a democracy. One of the big problems we have had in the last century is the rise of authoritarian regimes run by dictators and this why we are seeing the Arab spring and the aspiration for a democracy. Part of the reason that there has been hostility towards the West is basically political because in the perception of many Muslims, those regimes were supported by the West. But now that we see this rise in democracy, in Tunisia, in Egypt, in Syria today.
DP: But the first thing that President Morsi, the first speech he gave after being elected in Egypt, was to demand that the United States release the man responsible for the first bombing of the World Trade Center.
IR: And I disagree with him completely on that.
DP:I know you do. But you’re not the issue. Islam is the issue.
IR: But that’s where I respect to differ. Islam is not the issue. People like [Morsi] who have the wrong understanding—which is why many people in Egypt didn’t vote for him. Had the people who are responsible for the revolution succeeded in getting together, they would have won. The problem is that the revolutionaries were divided amongst themselves on a leader. That’s what happened it Egypt. And most of those people are Muslims. Morsi won the vote by only a few percentage points.
DP: Pakistan was set up to be a secular Muslim state. It would have been, in effect, your model. And now, look today. {The Muslim problem] has nothing to do with Western colonialism, because Pakistan was never colonized for a day. Yet Pakistan today has blasphemy laws, it has a Sharia court, and its constitution says that only a Muslim can be a president of Pakistan. What is a non-Muslim supposed to think when confronting these things?
IR: I understand fully. I mean this is why people believe that Islam is the problem. The problem is not Islam, it is what I call and inquisition of Islam. Just like what happened in Spain during the time of inquisition, to suggest that that was the teaching of Jesus Christ is not true.
DP: Right, but Christianity got better and better and better and better, and Islam got worse. That’s the problem. The trajectories are in opposite directions.
My book , Still the Best Hope, discusses Americanism, Leftism, and Islamism. At the end of the Islamist chapters, I write that I do have a belief that a reformed—I don’t know if my guest will accept that term—Islam is possible and will come from American Muslims. So on that we may have some agreement.
DP: You’re very welcome. So how, again, do you deal with that? Because we all acknowledge that Christianity had a dark age in Europe, but its trajectory has been moral progress, but the trajectory of Islam has been moral regress. And that’s eight hundred years. So if you’re a salesman and I’m a Martian and want to pick a religion, why would I pick Islam given this record?
IR: Well that’s a tough question to answer but basically the short answer is: There are many people who find solace in Islam. There are many people who find their spiritual answers in Islam, and Islam’s spirituality and Islam’s discipline, and Islam’s prayer, and fasting. There many people around the world, even in America, who find in Islam their spiritual answers. And that has to be respected and acknowledged.
DP: And it is. We do. But my question was based on moral record: What do you do with the eight-hundred-year downhill slide?
IR: Well we have to correct it.
DP: But why did it happen?
IR: Well there are many answers. It happened for various reasons. But the real question is: how do we turn it around? And we must turn it around, not only for the sake of Muslims but for the sake of the world. And this is what my book is about, this is what my life is about, what my work is about. And we have to do this together, Dennis. It requires theologians, it requires scholars, it requires people like yourself in the media because a lot of it has to do with perceptions and misperceptions on both sides. We have to work together to turn this around, and the good news is we can. There are many people of good will from the highest levels of government in many countries in the Muslim world, to academics, to people who want to be part of this change.
DP: Are you familiar with Dr. Zuhdi Jasser?
IR: Yes. I don’t know him personally very well but I know of him and his work.
DP: Where do you two differ? Because I have great respect for him. He is the founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, located in Phoenix.
