Common Ground News Service – March 28, 2006
Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH)
March 28, 2006
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ARTICLES IN THIS EDITION:
1. In the absence of leadership, anything goes… by Noha A. Bakr
In the fourth in a series of articles on the role of ijtihad in Muslim-Western relations, Noha A. Bakr, a Jordan-based doctoral candidate in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, considers the various mechanisms for tackling new problems – ijtihad, taqlid and fatwas – and advocates their use by “moderate” Muslims to tackle extreme responses to new issues, such as the violent aftermath of the caricatures of the Prophet. She looks to the majority of Muslims who do not advocate radicalism and who embrace the peaceful, tolerant heritage of Islam for positive change: “Let’s use our voices – through such mechanisms as the fatwa - to create a new ethical standard for our community.”
(Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), March 28, 2006)
2. ~YOUTH VIEWS~
An open letter to interfaith activists by Fait Mahdini
Fait Mahdini, a student at the American University’s School of International Service, outlines one opportunity for interfaith activists to reach the large number of young people who are often lured by the sense of community and purpose that extremist ideologies promise, and yet whose views and future actions will shape the world. Underlining the power of music in influencing opinion in a way that no interfaith dialogue can, Mahdini calls on all artists who have an understanding of the importance of interfaith tolerance and acceptance “to consider this proposal, and to use your art in positive ways to inspire and change the lives of the millions of youth who listen to your music, who know every line to your songs, and who turn to you when they feel that the world is against them.”
(Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), March 28, 2006)
3. History dispels the lies about Islam by Mohammed Al Masry
Professor at the University of Waterloo and National President of the Canadian Islamic Congress, Mohammed Al Masry, considers the psychological reasons as to why disinformation about the “other” is spread and then adopted as fact. As an example, he considers “one of the most persistent lies repeated by its detractors…that Muslims spread their faith by the sword. Looking at both the Qur’an which states “there is no compulsion in religion", as well as history that demonstrates that Islam has never been spread through violence, Al Masry looks at how little evidence supports this claim, demonstrating the human susceptibility to this phenomenon.
(Source: Middle East Times, March 13, 2006)
4. Radicalism and the construction of civilisations by M. Hilaly Basya
M. Hilaly Basya, Executive Director at the Center for Moderate Muslims and Lecturer at Muhammadiyah University of Prof. Dr. Hamka, describes the evolution of epistemology in both the West and the East, and how this context has influenced the interpretation of religion and spirituality. As a result, in order to encourage a rapprochement between East and West, “a revision of the old-world -views of both Islam and the West is urgent. A dialogue of civilisations will only make a significant contribution if it is supported by the revolution of a new paradigm.”
(Source: Jakarta Post, March 10, 2006)
5. Muslim, French - and proud to be both by Katrin Bennhold
International Herald Tribune writer, Katrin Bennhold, considers the perspective of Dalil Boubakeur, president of France's officially sanctioned Muslim Council, a French Muslim who does not believe in multiculturalism. Although this perspective does not sit well “with the entire five-million-member Muslim community…he considers himself a forerunner of a modern, liberal, apolitical Islam - an Islam he reckons will take root this century in Europe and beyond.” He sees the clash of civilisations more as a clash between those Muslims who choose to assimilate and those who are hostile toward assimilation, and does not pretend to understand the views of young Muslims in the suburbs who often openly criticise him. As an example of one of many diverse views held by Muslims living in Europe, he looks forward to a day when questions of identity – whether he is Muslim or French first – will no longer be asked.
(Source: International Herald Tribune, March 16, 2006)
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ARTICLE 1
In the absence of leadership, anything goes…
Noha A. Bakr
Amman - Events like the Muhammad caricatures and their terrible aftermath leave most of us wondering how to reconcile the anger and violence of a minority of Muslims with the culture of peace espoused by the majority. We frequently dismiss or explain the actions of this hostile minority as not representative of the rest of the peace-loving Muslim community. Although one out of five people on earth is Muslim, the tiny fraction that resorts to irrational and counterproductive means to express its frustration is the one that grabs the headlines.
It is time we Muslims begin to identify and analyse the reasons why this minority has neutralised and silenced most of us. The most important problem that the Muslim community faces today is a virtual absence of spiritual, ethical and moral leadership. This comes from a deep-rooted fear, on the part of more representative Muslims, of taking an authoritative position on current crises and events.
Is this due to an inherent lack of tools in Islam to tackle new problems? Not quite. Islamic leaders and legal scholars faced new challenges and tough problems for centuries and used either ijtihad or taqlid to reach conclusions. Ijtihad is the process of reasoning whereby a scholar of Islamic law uses the principles and procedures established in legal theory to extract a rule directly from the Qur’an and Sunnah (tradition and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad). Taqlid is adherence to the precedent established within one of the four schools of Islamic law and judging in conformity to it.
The goal of both processes is identical: to reach legal norms in conformity with God’s law. Whereas ijtihad interprets the sources directly, taqlid refers to the authority of the founder of one of the schools of law. Throughout Islamic history, ijtihad enjoyed a privileged position as the superior means of making decisions. Taqlid is dismissed today as mere docile imitation of others. But such a simplification misses the point.
Ijtihad was instrumental in formulating the legal system from scratch. Once it was in place, ijtihad per se was no longer necessary (i.e. we did not need to re-invent the legal system, only reach decisions on new cases as they arose). With the Islamic legal system in place, taqlid becomes the de facto means of treating issues that arise.
For too long, Muslims have debated the virtues of ijtihad over taqlid and found themselves in an impossible situation. Many a Muslim layperson and scholar argue that we need to embrace ijtihad to tackle the problems facing the community in the modern world because taqlid is blind imitation and that has been the cause of our problems. But few scholars are qualified to perform ijtihad even within traditional Islamic institutions of higher knowledge. And most who do perform ijtihad seem to be out of touch with either the modern world or Islamic values, rendering their conclusions less than authoritative and hardly relevant. So, is there no solution?
Somewhere between ijtihad and taqlid is the institution of the fatwa. The fatwa, or legal judgement, comes within the framework of taqlid and is the result of ijtihad within a particular school of law. Although the most infamous fatwas in recent memory have been nearly as counterproductive and irrational as the actions of the inflammatory violent minority, the potential for its use to lay foundations of peace and reconciliation abound.
Perhaps it is here that the greater Muslim community can find its voice and express itself most authoritatively. When an incident like the publication of the Muhammad caricatures takes place, reasonable and intelligent leaders firmly grounded in Islamic sources should confer and issue timely and functional fatwas that tackle the crux of the problem as well as propose proportional and effective actions for Muslims to take.
How would this work in the case of the caricatures? They first appeared in the Danish press in September of last year, but the international response did not begin until almost five months later. Muslim intellectual leaders had time to issue fatwas to provide an Islamic perspective on drawing the Prophet, freedom of speech as well as appropriate responses. Fatwas could have stopped the small groups that exploited the cartoon issue for their own political gain.
We saw this at work effectively in many responses to the caricatures. Muslim organisations in different countries offered concrete, positive and proactive actions to take in order to teach people about the Prophet’s kindness, peacefulness and piety. Throughout the world, concerned Muslims arranged educational talks and distributed films, books and other media products to present their views on the issue. But these community groups did not catch media headlines, nor do they carry religious authority with Muslims in other countries, especially among political groups bent on using violence to advance their parochial agendas.
These “moderate” organisations need to shed their fear of ijtihad and taqlid and take on the responsibility of putting forward Islamic perspectives that are more representative of the majority of Muslims and, indeed, of Islam itself. If balanced and educated Muslims yield the ethical and moral domain to the loudest, most violent and most irrational elements of the community, then we are accomplices in their behaviour. Let’s use our voices – through such mechanisms as the fatwa - to create a new ethical standard for our community.
If we cannot begin to reclaim Islam for those who love and embrace its remarkable heritage of peace and tolerance, its legacy of science and exploration, and its teachings of equality, freedom and responsibility, we will have allowed the angry mob to speak for most of us.
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*Noha Bakr is a doctoral candidate in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University.
This article is part of a series of views on the role of ijtihad in Muslim-Western relations, published jointly by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and United Press International (UPI).
Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), March 28, 2006
Visit the website at www.commongroundnews.org
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH).
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.
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ARTICLE 2
~YOUTH VIEWS~
An open letter to interfaith activists and musicians of all faiths
Fait Mahdini
Washington, DC - The opportunities for influencing public opinion and promoting peace and mutual understanding are limitless in an age where the world is connected at the press of a button or the touch of a keyboard, but those of us involved in the efforts for interfaith dialogue and tolerance still face obstacles in making our voices heard.
Unfortunately, the same inter-connectedness that should unite us allows those who preach hate and intolerance to spread their messages. Today, it is more important than ever for those of us who support pluralism and interfaith cooperation to double our efforts to break through the wall of images and sounds that surrounds us each day.
In this struggle for understanding, youth are our most important resource, and the group we should all strive to reach. It is youth whose views and future actions will shape the world. For this reason alone, our efforts to increase interfaith dialogue and cross-cultural understanding must focus on them. In an increasingly complex world, young people are sometimes overwhelmed and it is all too easy for the comforting, yet simplistic, messages of rejection and intolerancet to reach them.
In order to combat messages of intolerance and strengthen cross-cultural understanding, we must come up with more than academic conferences and symbolic demonstrations of unity to reach the younger generations. In order to make a lasting impact, we must express our message in ways that appeal to the interests of youth, for example through the use of the visual arts, sport and music. We must think “outside of the box” in order to promote interfaith understanding successfully. Let’s face it: one sentence from the mouth of a famous musician can have just as much power, influence and impact as the work of an entire organisation devoted to interfaith dialogue.
Imagine entering a concert venue where you know you are among people from a wide range of faiths, all there for a common cause - music and international peace and understanding. Walking around before the show begins, you notice young Christians wearing the cross, Jewish youth wearing skullcaps and a group of young Muslims, some wearing kufis (traditional braided) and hijabs - different faiths gathered under one roof together to enjoy music and camaraderie.
Outside the main hall you find hundreds of paintings, drawings and poetry exhibits celebrating the diversity of the world’s religions. Then, as the show begins, thousands of young Christians, Jews and Muslims rise from their seats to watch as rappers such as Mos Def , Common, Talib Kweli, Nas and Kanye West appear. Mos Def begins the concert with a “Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim” (“In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful”), which is then translated into English. Then, Common and Talib Kweli take to their stage, filling the hall with their socially-conscious lyrics. As their deep and introspective sound fills the hearts of listeners, you observe Nas, with a microphone in his hand, preparing for his performance. He begins his performance sitting in a chair (identical to the one from his well-known music video “One Mic”), and sings the line “God forgive me for my sin...” He then goes into the song “Just a Moment” which references Christian and Islamic scriptures.
As Nas winds down his performance, Kanye West’s song begins, and the crowd goes wild. Kanye begins singing over the sea of people, “God, show me the way because the Devil is trying to bring me down”, a message that resonates with any God-fearing individual, regardless of religion. Even Bono makes a special appearance - to sing U2’s famous anthem, “Pride (In the name of love).”
The music is flowing, the beat is rocking and the energy is electric, lively, and full of hope. Most importantly, Christian, Jewish and Muslim youth are interacting, peacefully. While bobbing their heads next to one other, they see people of other faiths enjoying the same music. It is at that moment that they begin to dispel the stereotypes they have learned from the media, or from religious or political leaders, about the “other”.
We have all been touched by a sound, a beat, a lyric, the hair on our arms rising as our bodies and hearts become one. We might even be moved to tears. At such moments, we understand the power of music, and how it can inspire thousands of people to live together and to learn about and respect the beliefs of those different from them.
The positive energy produced by such a concert could affect the perspectives and opinions of those who attend such a concert for the rest of their lives. A hundred interfaith dialogue meetings could not replicate its power. You forget about that article you read a month ago, or the names of the interfaith group speakers at that convention, but you would always recall the night when some of the most popular musicians of our time came together on one stage, making history by promoting a common cause.
And to all artists who have an understanding of the importance of interfaith tolerance and acceptance, I ask you to join us, to consider this proposal, and to use your art in positive ways to inspire and change the lives of the millions of youth who listen to your music, who know every line to your songs, and who turn to you when they feel that the world is against them. Let us work towards organising an interfaith concert that will encourage the youth of the world to respect one another regardless of faith.
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* Fait Mahdini is a student at the American University’s School of International Service, studying International Politics and Human Rights.
Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), March 28, 2006
Visit the website at www.commongroundnews.org
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH).
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.
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ARTICLE 3
History dispels the lies about Islam
Mohammed Al Masry
Waterloo, Ontario - A well-known technique in any propaganda war is the spreading of "disinformation" about your enemy. Disinformation is the new post-modern word for lies.
If you repeat the same lies over and over again, listeners' critical thinking skills are numbed; and in the absence of any opposing argument, the lies eventually cannot be differentiated from truth.
Islam has had many enemies over the centuries and still has. One of the most persistent lies repeated by its detractors is that Muslims spread their faith by the sword.
Yet of all mainstream religions, none is more precisely documented as to its origin, revelation, message and teachings. Since its emergence through the Prophet Muhammad and his transmission of its holy book, the history of Islam has been well recorded. From the Prophet's time until today, the Qur’an has offered guidance and discipline for everyday life. As Islam spread, the lives and teachings of its messengers have also been documented.
As with Judaism and Christianity, the most influential and revered figures are those from the time when the faith was newly revealed; in Islam, these were Muslims who lived in the age of the Prophet and who embodied the teachings of the Qur’an as examples to their fellow human beings. Many of their thoughts and deeds were recorded for the benefit of future generations.
To return to the question of whether the Qur’an encourages Muslims to spread their faith by force, or whether the Prophet himself set a violent example for Muslims to follow, one has only to consult the source.
The Qur’an is crystal clear in stating, "There is no compulsion in religion." The commandment is absolute; there are no exceptions. Coercion, compulsion, force - whatever one chooses to call it - is totally forbidden. No other holy book lays down such a clear directive to its adherents.
Believers in the world's largest Muslim country of today, Indonesia, have never in history encountered foreign Muslim soldiers on their soil. The same is true for today's Muslims in Malaysia, China, sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, Europe and Turkey. All of these countries or regions were introduced to Islam through other Muslims, not by Muslim armies.
Even in Egypt where the earliest Muslims were mostly Arab soldiers, Islam was diffused slowly throughout the country over more than 400 years. The Egyptians loved Islam because of the values it embraced, such as justice, equality, modernity and freedom.
And in Egypt, as well as in Persia, Greater Syria, India, North Africa and Spain, converts freely accepted Islam because it offered comparatively more than other religions of the day.
During those early centuries, people who felt oppressed or restricted by the rigidity of Christian and Jewish traditions, or excluded from the caste system of Hinduism, were attracted by Islam's de-emphasis on hierarchy. They loved the Islamic teachings that God is One and the Lord of All, that humans can talk to God directly, and that there is no Original Sin - every human being is wholly accountable for his / her deeds.
So while it is true that Islam spread in some places with the speed of a bullet, no literal bullets have been involved. The whole concept of "convert or die" is utterly foreign and reprehensible to authentic Islamic beliefs and conduct. And the Qur’an itself further reinforces the sanctity of all human life in saying that to kill another person is as evil as killing the entire human race.
Muslims do not blame any religion for the atrocities committed by those claiming to be its adherents.
Thus, Muslims do not blame Judaism itself for injustices committed by Jews against Palestinians. Nor do they blame Christianity per se for the crimes committed by Church-sanctioned medieval Crusades; for atrocities committed during the conquest of Spain by Christian armies and the subsequent persecution and expulsion of Muslims; nor for the horrors of the Inquisition, the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre or any number of similar tragedies.
All three faiths, rooted in Abrahamic tradition, teach similar values of non-violence, justice and equality. Those who take up the "cause" of any faith through violent means are in effect blasphemers of it.
The earliest Muslims in Arabia were persecuted and subjected to torture. They fled for their lives from Mecca to Medina, but their pagan enemies followed, determined to annihilate them. Then and only then, did Muslims take up arms in self-defence. This was not a religious war, however, but rather a forced political conflict in which the rich and powerful of sixth-century AD Arabia perceived their status as being challenged.
The Muslims' aim was not to convert their pagan countrymen, but to defend themselves; similarly, the anti-Muslim pagans were not interested in suppressing Islam itself, but in subjugating its believers through political power.
When the Prophet Muhammad and his followers returned peacefully to Mecca in triumph, he granted pardon to the same people who had persecuted and waged war against him and his fellow Muslims.
This humane and generous behaviour reflected the teaching of many Qur’anic verses that stress the importance of courtesy, politeness and civility, even where there has been severe conflict: "And the true servants of the God of Mercy are those who walk upon the earth humbly; and when the ignorant address them, they reply 'Peace'; and they pass the night praying to their Lord, prostrating and standing." (25:63 - 64)
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* Mohammed Al Masry is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo and National President of the Canadian Islamic Congress. Acknowledgement to Media Monitors Network (MMN).
Source: Middle East Times, March 13, 2006
Visit the website at www.metimes.com
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH).
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.
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ARTICLE 4
Radicalism and the construction of civilisations
M. Hilaly Basya
Jakarta - A dialogue of civilisations, as promoted by scholars and activists, is seen by some as an effective way to eliminate radicalism and terrorism. But such a dialogue would not be simple, and any hoped-for results cannot not be achieved until both the Islamic and Western world views are reconstructed.
The progress of Western civilisation has been considered the "perennial wisdom", with Nature viewed as a giant machine that works mechanically. In such a framework, it is unsurprising that materialism, which emphasises empiricism and positivism, becomes the highest epistemology in arriving at the truth.
There are three kinds of epistemology. First there is rational epistemology, which uses reason as the base and the source of knowledge. This epistemology was developed in ancient Greece. The thinkers who developed it were Socrates, Plato, Anaximenes, Pythagoras, and most of the renowned ancient Greek thinkers. Besides Greece, this kind of epistemology was also developed by Muslim thinkers such as al-Farabi, Avicenna, al-Kindi, etc. They lived in the early period of Islam (7th-13th centuries).
Second is intuitive epistemology, which was developed by theologians and in which revelation and intuition are the sources of knowledge.
Third is empirical epistemology, which was developed by modern Western scientists.
Empirical epistemology later becomes the positivism paradigm. This paradigm was based on the architects of modernism, Rene Descartes and Newton. It is used in many of the disciplines of knowledge, such as sociology, biology and psychology. Ironically, the paradigm causes the reduction of wisdom, because it only believes in the knowledge and the truth that come from the empirical world.
Thus, most Western people doubt the existence of spirituality in the universe. They see the universe as a thing that has no soul and no life. They also view the human being as just a body. According to Arnold Toynbee (1976) there is a big gap in Western civilisation: on one side science and technology grow rapidly, but on other side moral wisdom and humanity have decreased.
According to Hans Kung, in his book, A Global Ethics for Global Politics and Economics (1997), the policy of Western governments tends to be one of self-interest and the alienation of morality. That is why they allow the Israeli annexation of Palestinian areas. The power and riches are tempting.
The positivism paradigm is also based on "binary opposition logic". It creates a pair of opposites, such as subject-object, West-East, reason-intuition, above-under, matter-non-matter, man-woman. The first position is higher than the second. This kind of paradigm states implicitly that Western civilisation is better than Eastern (Islam).
On the other hand, the theology of most Muslims is exclusive. Many believe that the real truth belongs only to Islamic teachings. This disturbs the mutual respect between Muslims and others. It motivates violence. It allows oppression and violence to establish “justice”.
Actually, many refer to their Islamic teaching as resulting from the exercise of "ancient reason". This kind of reason came to be in Arab consciousness early in the development of Islam. The "ancient reason" in question was influenced by Arabian culture and the socio-political situation of the time, which why some verses of the Qur’an and the Hadiths of the Prophet Muhammad discuss the enemies of Islam and the young Muslim community. This community viewed most non-Muslims at the time as second-class citizens who did not deserve the same rights as they did. Non-Muslims – specifically, the idolators of Arabia -- are called kafirs (infidels) and there is discrimination based on Islamic theology.
Recently, this kind of theology has allowed for Muslims to terrorise non-Muslims at large, especially Westerners and including adherents of religions considered legitimate by the Qur’an and treated accordingly by the Prophet at the time. The rationale of terrorists, like Amrozi who bombed Bali in 2002, shows "the arrogance of theology". They destroy human lives in the name of God, and spread terror in the name of truth. So, how can peace and mutual understanding be established if they follow this exclusive theology?
The reconstruction of civilisations is meant to enable us to review the world-view of both Islam (the East) and the West. Some Western scholars have criticised and reconstructed the fundamentals of their civilisation. The post-modernist movement, represented by reconstructive thinkers such as Paul Ricouer, Gadamer, Frithjof Capra and Gary Zukav, has made a significant contribution to that revision, but without a significant impact.
In Islam, we have to criticise "Islamic reason", meant as a deconstruction of "ancient reason", the epistemology used to construct Islamic teaching. Several prominent Islamic thinkers, such as Mohammad Abed Al-Jabiri, Mohammed Arkoun, Nashr Hamid Abu Zayd and Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim, have promoted this movement. They have especially tried to reinterpret Islamic law, theology, Sufism and philosophy.
According to Abdulahi Ahmed an-Na'im, "ancient reason" is in the text of a sacred book that was revealed in the Madinah period, when the Prophet Muhammad was at war with the enemies of Islam. That is why the content of the text sounds quite exclusive, especially about the relation between Muslims and non-Muslims. The jihad concept, for instance, appeared during that war. So it seems full of hostility to others.
The situation compelled or forced the text to speak to local and particular reason. Like the Qur’an, it differentiates between Muslims and non-Muslims. The Qur’an uses the terminology of kafir dzimmi (protected infidels). It means they are not in the same position as Muslims.
Then, an-Na'im proposes a "shari‘a evolution". He asks Muslims to leave the text that was revealed in the Madinah period and turn to the Mecca period (an-Na'im, 1994). In the Mecca period the text speaks about universal values. It does not distinguish between people according to their religion. Shari‘a evolution is a proposal of "modern Islamic reason".
So a revision of the old world-views of both Islam and the West is urgent. A dialogue of civilisations will only make a significant contribution if it is supported by the revolution of a new paradigm.
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* M. Hilaly Basya is the Executive Director at the Center for Moderate Muslims and is a Lecturer at Muhammadiyah University of Prof. Dr. Hamka.
Source: Jakarta Post, March 10, 2006
Visit the website at www.thejakartapost.com
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH).
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.
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ARTICLE 5
Muslim, French - and proud to be both
Katrin Bennhold
Paris - He was born in Algeria, heads the main mosque of Paris and is the most prominent Muslim in a predominantly Catholic country. But Dalil Boubakeur, president of France's officially sanctioned Muslim Council, can sound Frencher than the French.
"I am not in favour of multiculturalism", Boubakeur, 65, said recently at his ornate office at the mosque, a soaring structure surrounding a mosaic-lined courtyard on the Left Bank. In a secular country like France, he added matter-of-factly, "there is only one culture: French culture."
This may not play well with the entire five-million-member Muslim community here. But Boubakeur shrugs off criticism, explaining that he considers himself a forerunner of a modern, liberal, apolitical Islam - an Islam he reckons will take root this century in Europe and beyond.
"When you're ahead, you are lonely", he said. "I was born a Muslim, I am of French culture and I love Europe. There is no contradiction."
These are tricky times to be in charge of Western Europe's largest Muslim community. The war against terrorism and bloodshed in the Palestinian territories and Iraq have added a broader sense of global injustice to the exclusion many Muslims feel in France.
But Boubakeur does not believe in a clash of civilisations pitting Islam against the West. Rather, he sees a battle playing out among European Muslims, between those willing to adopt Western values and those hostile to assimilation.
His attitudes made Boubakeur a natural choice three years ago when the government was seeking a president for its newly formed council, an umbrella organisation set up to represent France's Muslims at a time when Paris was waking up to the need to address the concerns of this community, rather than leaving that task to foreign governments.
Boubakeur's secularist vision of the state, his opposition to affirmative action, and his classical French education had won him the trust of France's political class, starting with President Jacques Chirac, who knew Boubakeur's father (a previous director of the Paris mosque) and calls Boubakeur a friend.
It also helped that Boubakeur oozes European sophistication. His attire is Western, his face clean-shaven. His secretary in the front office does not wear a head scarf. He cites Voltaire, speaks German and holds France's highest honour, the Légion d'Honneur. He is what the newspaper Le Monde last month dubbed "the ideal Muslim".
But many French Muslims, most of whom are descendants of working- class immigrants, feel resentment toward a man they say is not one of them. They say that Boubakeur, who has never lived in an immigrant suburb and rarely visits one, does not understand their plight and that he has bought into a Republican vision of integration that has left them in limbo between formal equality and de facto discrimination.
"He is a good person, but he is the antithesis of a Muslim representative", said Mohammed Henniche, leader of the Union of Muslim Associations in the Seine-Saint-Denis district north of Paris, which is home to many families of North African origin and was a hot spot in last year's riots. "He speaks the language of the French elites, not that of ordinary Muslims. The youth in the suburbs don't understand him, and he does not understand them."
Boubakeur replies that his acceptance of French values is the wave of the future.
"That for me is being a modern man," he said, "and that is the message I would like to pass on to my Muslim brothers and sisters. I want them to adapt European culture without fear and to embrace it wholeheartedly."
It is a message with a powerful biographical undertone. Born in 1940 in the Mediterranean port of Skikda, in northeast Algeria, Boubakeur spent most of his childhood in Algiers, where his father, a conservative Algerian lawmaker and theologian close to the French colonial administration, drilled into him the notion that studying hard and absorbing French culture was a way of overcoming prejudices.
Boubakeur was 16 when he came to Paris, the age of many of the rioters who burned cars in the suburbs last November. He attended the distinguished Louis-le-Grand high school and went on to study literature in Cairo and medicine in Paris, becoming a respected cardiologist. He married a mayor's daughter from a village in Auvergne who converted from Catholicism to Islam after they met.
Although Boubakeur recognises that there are "socio-economic reasons" why many young Muslims do not share his views, he has little time for young fundamentalists who reject Western values.
"I don't like the bearded ones very much", he said. "They are small-minded and dangerous. Political Islam is the illness of the modern state."
For Boubakeur, who has written several books on the issue, religion is not political identity but rather spirituality, even poetry, and a way of life.
He argues that Muslim youths need not just jobs but a stake in France's heritage, a point he will make publicly in June when he joins Chirac in Verdun at the unveiling of a memorial honouring Muslims who died fighting for France during World War I.
At the council, which oversees Islamic affairs from the training of imams to mosque construction and halal markets, and is supervised by the Interior Ministry, Boubakeur has been presiding over a fragile collection of Muslim organisations often in disagreement.
One of them is the main Paris mosque, his own fiefdom, which is funded mainly by the Algerian government. Others include the National Federation of French Muslims, supported by the Moroccan government, and the Union of Islamic Organisations of France, close to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Boubakeur has seen his authority challenged more than once. One test was a law passed two years ago that banned ostentatious religious garb, including headscarves for Muslim girls, in public schools. Most Muslim groups opposed the legislation. Boubakeur says that he, too, would have preferred to avoid a law, but when there was one he did not challenge the government.
Last year, when Iraqi militants kidnapped a French journalist, Florence Aubenas, and threatened to kill her unless the head-scarf ban was lifted, Boubakeur managed to forge a united stance among French Muslims rallying behind the government and rejecting such blackmail.
More recently, when several French newspapers reprinted Danish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, Boubakeur distanced himself from a protest march organised by some Muslim groups but eventually spearheaded legal action against two newspapers that published the cartoons.
For him, these three challenges were milestones, not only for his own legitimacy but also for the evolution of the Muslim community.
The fact that the cartoon controversy did not lead to any violence or sustained protests in France, Boubakeur says, "was a crucial moment, a real turning point."
"It was reassuring that in France we managed to channel the anger into the legal system", he said.
"Our communities are maturing; they are beginning to act like Europeans. Here you have Muslims appealing to European institutions not to be discriminated against."
On a personal level, Boubakeur refuses to say whether he feels Muslim first and then French, or vice versa.
"I am completely Muslim and I am completely French", he says. "There is perfect harmony."
If a day comes when such questions of identity are no longer asked, he adds, "we will have come a long way".
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* Katrin Bennhold is a writer for the International Herald Tribune.
Source: International Herald Tribune, March 16, 2006
Visit the website at www.iht.com
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