“1) American culture is the primary definition of the way we dress, the food we enjoy, the entertainment we seek (Movies, TV, video games).
2) Islam can be understood practically as a filter of the ‘bad’ aspects of the American lifestyle out of ones life. The bad aspects are the obvious haraam (forbidden actions). It can also be an encouragement of the ‘good’ aspects of American life.”
Response:
A culture can be understood as the output of a ‘program’ with various inputs. The inputs, in this case, are principles on theology, philosophy, human nature, rights, etc.
We can see this easily through examples. If the input is the principle that all humans are equal in all ways, then a culture emerges which reinforces that position, with regards to the overall lifestyle including the art, entertainment, workplace, definition of justice, and overall relationships.
The same can work in reverse. If the input is that humans are not equal at all, then a culture emerges which reinforces the degradation of the unfortunate class, and this permeates through the culture down all the way to how news is reported and how different people are depicted in art, film and even casual conversation.
Everyone accepts this so casually that it is largely a matter-of-fact, and we end up with American slavery and the colonial era.
Western culture is the output based on its own inputs, and the fact of the matter is that it is too young to have any firm inputs. The example of slavery is clear on this matter, within a few hundred years attitudes towards slavery changed as a result of new principles being applied. Within another few decades attitudes towards everything from body image, sexuality and religion have dramatically changed.
On the other hand, Islamic cultures which developed out of 1400 years of exposure to Islam also have had their own independent inputs. These principles have stood the test of time. Further to this, Middle Eastern and Eastern cultures did not just deal with Islam as a matter of choice or an alternative lifestyle, it totally consumed their whole being.
This went to such an extent that even non-Muslims in the polity were affected by Islamic culture, much like today where the situation is reversed and Muslims are affected by non-Islamic culture. And frankly, Muslims have been affected even more than their non-Muslim counterparts were in Islamic times.
The situation with Muslims today is that the West defines principles (inputs), and we get a culture out of it (i.e. modern consumer culture), and then Muslims attempt to filter the result through ‘Islam’. The problem with this approach is that Islam is not just a filter of culture. It contains within it the seeds of developing its own culture.
The principles of Islam, when applied in a thorough fashion, led people to a thriving, principally independent, culture from the west. We see in history, when Islam was applied and Islamic societies emerged, that Islamic art was not just ghetto art used now for Arabic calligraphy (link). Islamic music was not harmonizing boy-bands singing about the Prophet (S) (link). Islamic family lifestyle was not the American dream. Islamic governance was not based on boards of trustees. Muslim children weren’t raised with a Muslim muppet on TV (link).
But if Islam remains a filter, that’s all we’ll ever get. A slightly adjusted version of a culture we already know. We won’t get music that’s entirely our own, we won’t get a dress that is entirely our own, we won’t get art that entirely our own, we won’t have a perspective that is entirely our own, and we certainly won’t get a spirituality that is entirely our own.
Historically, converts to Islam, and specifically we see this in the European converts of the pre-industrial age, were people who totally accepted adoption of faith, principles and culture. When they converted, yes, they totally adopted the culture and perspective of the people which taught them Islam, and they abandoned that which was based on kufr in their hearts. They had no alternative, really. They knew what they were putting aside and what they were picking up.
But today, even Muslims born into the faith find it unfathomable to wrap their minds around the concept that some basic attachments to Western culture needs to first be abandoned in order to build something Islamic.
We all know the maxim, “if you see something wrong the least we can do is dislike it in our hearts.” But today we give excuses to this capitalistic materialistic society and try to find why it *is* Islam, and why its cultural output is ‘not so far’ from Islam. Just let us tweak it here and there. Add some minority-fiqh and it’s all legal too. Rationalization at its finest.
Forget abandoning Western culture and principles from which it arose, we don’t even want to dislike anything about it in our heart.
Is it even possible to put aside Western culture completely? Probably not. We can never forget Rocky or LOST. However, with commitment and a guide who is carrying that Prophetic message, we will see that slowly there is an independent alternative. Leaders such as that replace a void with something fresh and growing and alive.
But at the same time we must know it is difficult to separate from any lover, even ones who are bad for us. So, of course, inching progress will occur and compromises will be made. But until this fundamental decision is made in the heart to (at least) incline away from the current cultural hegemony, little progress towards a true Islamic lifestyle in one’s own household will be possible.
- If society makes a thing illegal (i.e. child prostitution, drugs, slavery) but it continues to occur, is not society still accountable? #
Afterthought Immigrants and Introducing Self-Hating South Asians
This American Islamic culture is one that Imam Zaid Shakir is asked about on his recent PBS interview:
IMAM ZAID SHAKIR: I think as the American Muslim community itself become more integrated and more mature, faith will probably trump culture. And, you have a new culture emerging. You have an American Muslim culture emerging, which is very important, because then you can get a unique understanding of the religion that would allow the American Muslim to take his or her rightful place amongst the various Muslim communities of the world.
BILL MOYERS: How do you define that American Muslim community? What’s it’s profile?
IMAM ZAID SHAKIR: It’s profile is African Americans, increasingly large numbers of Latino Americans and European, Caucasian Americans, and immigrants – South Asians, Pakistanis, Arabs and others. And, collectively I think you’ll see a common American Islamic culture emerge. It’s already happening.
“And immigrants”.
I don’t want to single out Imam Zaid here because of the way he may have phrased this answer, as it may have been less than his ideal intention. However, for discussion purposes, it is interesting to note the order that he lists the American Muslim makeup. Immigrants are placed dead last, and second generation Muslims aren’t even mentioned at all.
While this may be a simple aspect of unorganized speech during a dynamic interview, it’s also indicative of the way popular American Muslim leaders have subconsciously dealt with immigrants and their children: as afterthoughts in the larger scheme of American Muslim culture.
CAIR, on the other hand, notes that the largest community of American Muslims are in fact: South Asian. As of their 2001 report, South Asians are the largest Mosque attending population at 33% of all Muslims, with African-Americans coming in a close second at 30%. Another report which simply examines faith and not mosque attendance is also cited by CAIR. This report lists South Asians as 25% of the overall Muslim Population in North America, with Arabs coming in at 23% and African-Americans at 14%.
So looking at the above numbers, isn’t it difficult to understand why Qawalli hasn’t penetrated into American Islamic culture. Why hasn’t South Asian poetry, art and dress impacted any of the large American Islamic organizations of today? Why are nearly all Muslim converts distinctly Arabic in appearance, style, and culture? Why are there no ‘rock star’ South Asian Imams and Sheykhs who have retained their South-Asianness? Why are so many South Asians apparantly not attending the mosque, but identifying themselves as Muslim?
Imam Zaid in his book “Scattered Pictures”, reflects on the impact of not knowing his paternal grandfather due to the context of his society, the impact of slavery and segregation. The odd thing is, most South Asians who have had no such harrowing experience also cannot name their grandfathers, much less identify and understand how they practiced their faith.
A large part of this is a result of the first real case of Muslim immigrants who have brought along their own inferiority complex. Truly practicing first generation or second generation immigrant South Asian Muslims are afraid of their heritage, they look down upon the very faith that is practiced ‘back home’. Second Generation South Asians are particularly excellent at mocking their parents accents and habits. They do all this while they struggle to figure out if they are white or black, and how that impacts their jean’s bagginess. Most second generation children have no idea how to read in Urdu or Punjabi, and have little appreciation for the wealth of art and poetry that their parents culture produced.
This viewpoint though is not unique to immigrants, as native South Asians themselves have had an inferiority complex going back to times of colonization.
(continued with “More Manifestations of the Marginalization“)
history_lover pointed out this post: “Does anyone read this stuff” by sonia, and wondered if I would like to comment.
I’ll comment briefly (I hope).
What the post basically complains about are a few hadith which they are unable to rationalize under the moral compass they have today. If those are the only two hadith which they have a problem with they have a lot yet to encounter in my opinion. The Quran itself which also mentions women displaced as a result of war (which is what all this is really about), how they can be treated, what relationships can be had.
I guess the main problem here is the fact that most people buy into the idea of the western paradigm of empire and war. This is a paradigm based in distancing oneself from the ugliness of realities of carpet bombing, sanctions resulting in dying children, and radicalization of entire generations. In today’s world, the prostitution of Iraqi refugees is subtly ignored. The rise of legalized prostitution within Iraq itself is hidden. Of course, this is all so removed from the common people that they scratch their heads and then say, “why do these people hate us?”
It is a prerequisite to this discussion that we don’t acknowledge that the modern system of warfare, economy, and welfare leads us to child and adult prostitution, human trafficking, debt-slavery and other opportunistic evils. Of course, how can we really think about these things when discussing our moral superiority to the Prophet (Sallalahu’alaiheewassalam)?
No.. Let us clean our white sheets, don our saintly robes, and point the finger squarely at our ‘patriarchal’ past. Its a bit like the Bush governments statements, when asked about what differentiates them from the terrorists, “well we don’t WANT to kill civilians, they just happen to get killed”. So in this case, we don’t WANT rape and prostitution, it just happens to rise whenever we go to war with a country.
Most of these same people have no problem with moral compromises such as, say, legalizing marijuana, but they have a problem with the Islamic concept of maintaining order and societal structure during wartime with a conquered people. It is all or nothing and holier than thou (when convenient and without real holy guidance) in today’s modern world.
The ‘thing’ just becomes ‘illegal’, and even if it just keeps happening then its ‘bad enforcement’ or an ‘unfortunate result’. Women just happen to be completely taken advantage of in every situation in war time, with dramatic rises in rape and prostitution. Some would rather forget that fact and assert their ‘equality’ rather than admit there was a wisdom for what the Prophet (Sallalahu’alaiheewaassalam) allowed and applied.
The truth is, complainers of the Islamic paradigm have not spent even two minutes to step away from a theoretical viewpoint of source texts (which they have no qualifications for in the first place) and examining practical realities of building a state and dealing with consequences of war, displaced families, unprotected women and children.
How did these verses and Quranic ayats manifest themselves in the rights and realities of women living in Islamic states?
(check out the Kad?nlar Saltanat?)
Some time ago, I debated a particularly hard-headed group of atheists who seemed to think that Islamic traditionalist writings which discuss slavery were meant for the graveyard. I offered the idea that traditionalist interpretations on how to deal with poverty and the subclasses far outweigh ‘democratic alternatives’.
What is funny about certain forms of idealists is that they don’t even know they are idealists. Atheists such as these believe in an idealic vision where the weak are simply eliminated by the virtue of human goodness.
It’s not happening:
Two hundred years after the abolition of the slave trade by the UK Parliament in 1807, there are more slaves in the world than ever before; some estimate as many as 27 million.* It is easier and cheaper to buy and sell humans today than it was at the height of the transatlantic slave trade; in the 1800s, slaves were precious commodities, now they can be traded for just a few British pounds. Slavery may be forgotten, but it is not yet gone.
TurbanTip to Seekers Digest:
OpenDemocracy – Slavery in the 21st Century
March 2007 marks the bicentennial of the abolition of the slave trade. openDemocracy presents the first of a series of five photo-essays documenting contemporary forms of slavery around the world.
the truth on 
m.a.kidwai,CME/IND.RLY.(retd.) on 
