‘Muslims need to assimilate into Europe’
Qasim Moini
KARACHI, Nov 17: European culture and Islamic culture have different ethos and both are bound to collide unless there is assimilation and compromise.
(1) Do the ambassadors live according to their own culture or the culture of the country to which they are deputed? Why this demand on Muslims to give up Islam? Whom are you trying to appease? How many of people like you the Europe can finance?
(2) In secular matters the immigrants should completely assimilate. On the other hand if there is too much pressure to assimilate in those matters also where Shariah forbids any compromise then they should migrate elsewhere. Europe will love it and that should not bother any Muslim. Remember you are not in Europe as a beggar. And if you are then ask the idols you worship for your protection. A Muslim must be ready to uphold Islam even in the worst conditions.
Anwar Shaheen of the University of Karachi’s Pakistan Study Centre said this here on Thursday on the second day of a two-day international conference on ‘Islam in Europe’ while speaking on the topic of hijab and burqa in Europe. The seminar was organised by KU’s Area Study Centre for Europe in association with the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
Earlier orientalism was practiced by the Europeans. Now it seems that it is being financed by the orient itself. And Lord Macaulay will be proud of the fruit of his imagination-Ms Anwar Shaheen.
Ms Shaheen, who had conducted a survey of Muslim women living in Europe as well as Pakistani scholars to back up her research, ...
To back up her opinion. Let us not get lost in woods.
... said European society was justified in its reaction to Muslim women wearing hijab.
Not with you Ms, in this matter. Try some other livelihood. This one is not pious earning from Islamic standards. Know that you are stooping to low levels.
She said proponents of the veil considered it a divine commandment while other women faced patriarchal pressure to observe the veil.
If you read the Holy Qur'an then this crap will not come to your mouth, pen or keyboard.
However, she said many women also wore hijab out of free will.
Every sensible Mulimah will reject this leave and consolation. They should. No one has bestowed any authority to decide things Islamic.
Those who objected to the veil viewed it as a form of discrimination ...
They are wronging only themselves. that is what is the meaning of any attempt to temper with any divine injunction. The fate of those who reject truth is doomed.
... while others felt it did not conform to “contemporary corporate culture”.
If Islam would be decided by modern corporate culture then it will not be divine.
She criticised the “self-righteousness” of some women who observed the veil as “suicidal” and felt many of these women thought of themselves as more pious than those Muslim women who did not veil themselves.
This is a serious allegation. But should be ignored nevertheless-reason being the incoherence of the observation. The researcher does not know what she is talking about.
“If Muslims don’t feel comfortable with European laws they should come back” to their countries of origin, she said, while adding that “European governments should not frame discriminatory laws”.
This is a funny balancing act. It ignores two realities. (1) Europe (the population of old people is relatively large) is old and it needs the migrants to take care of the needs of that old population. So stop feeling sissy about your status as a migrant. More to the point stop worshiping white skin. (2) The economic activity has already shifted to non-western society. Think of Chinese production juggernaut, Japanese electronics, Indian economic power house and the resources and dynamism of the Gulf. If it is still difficult to believe then just have a look at the economies of European Union and the US.
Nigerian scholar Najimdeen Bakare spoke on Islam and European democracy. He said there was no clash of cultures but “a clash of interests”.
He added that it was important for Europe to understand Islam and Muslims as they were a sizable minority in the continent and that the Muslim World was no longer confined to the traditional lands of Islam, but now included those countries which hosted Muslim minorities.
Nice words Mr Bakare-only if you could stick to them
Mr Bakare said there was a need for a “cosmopolitan mazhab” for European Muslims as the community could no longer depend on fatwas originating from Muslim countries.
Indeed Fatwas will be required from local scholars but any attempt to devise a new Islam is foolishness in its most uncomfortable form. Do not worry Islamic scholars have reached nearly every corner of the globe and you can depend on them.
He said the elements defining western, European democratic values were secularism, ...
Because the Christian Church heaped havoc on European society. You can not reject Islam just because of papal misconduct. Does not sound logical.
pluralism, ...
Just ask them to accept Muslims with Islam as one of those who make the society plural-please.
political freedom, ...
After the current happening in US, the current godfather of European philosophy, one would not believe you any more. There is freedom as long as it suits their interests. It does not amount to a principle. It smells of opportunism.
liberty, ...
For the time being we shall say haha.
equality, ...
Once again we shall say haha.
rule of law ...
This applies in times of growth. Please think over it. This is the first thing that is crumbling in the face of current economic situation. Think Wall Street again.
and freedom of speech.
We have lot to say about it. You have freedom of speech as long as it does not hurt their interest.
Referring to secularism, he said western society recognises religion but insists it should be confined to the individual level.
To be more precise they keep governing free from Church. No one is objecting to that. To expect other to do the same is bit naive. Christian faith might have failed Christianity in general and Europe in particular but Islam is there for all to see, observe and adopt as a way of life. Only if they could overcome the biases created by their forefathers.
He observed there was a history of secularism is Islam, for in both the Umayyad and Abbasid empires there was a clear balance between the state and the mazhabs, which sprang from society.
If a king failed to implement Islam in his ruling then he should be criticized for that and not praised in any case.
He said the first generation of Muslim immigrants to Europe following World War II was not very literate and was primarily concerned with their economic well-being. The second generation was confused about traditional family values and values of the host society while the third generation of immigrants sought public visibility and wanted to move from the margins to the mainstream. This included wanting to express their religion publicly.
And there is nothing wrong in that.
“If western society fails to acknowledge the reality of Muslims there will be discord,” he said, adding that Muslim-majority nations need to have less influence on Muslim minorities.
What an insinuation. You too are stooping brother.
German scholar Dr Rainer Brunner spoke on ‘Euro-Islam’ and identity formation of European Muslims. He said it was pertinent to ask who spoke for European Muslims. “There is no shortage of pretenders, but it is not clear how much influence they have”.
This is a matter of details.
He said among European Muslim thinkers Swiss academic Tariq Ramadan called for a reform of Islam, returning the faith to its “pristine” roots. This, the scholar said, was reminiscent of conservative Salafi thought. He said Mr Ramadan rejects the concepts of Dar al Islam and Dar al Harb, instead proposing that Europe is Dar as Shahada, which was a concept close to the Muslim Brotherhood’s line of thought. This, said Dr Brunner, was not surprising as Mr Ramadan is the maternal grandson of Hasan al Banna, the Brotherhood’s founder.
Let us summarize. There is a Muslim called Tariq Ramadan. Who looks like a Muslim reformer. Europe likes that-to reform Islam. When Mr Ramadan asserts anything Islamic then Europe gets confused, they say, aren't you suppose to reform Islam-stick to that. We want zero Islam, they assert.
He said Tariq Ramadan tries to stick to religious dogma while also trying to reconcile dogma with a western lifestyle, for example equating Muslim immigrants to Europe with the muhajiroon of the early Islamic era who left Makkah for Madina.
Going back to sources has been vilified already in Europe. It is termed fundamentalism-a term having negative vibes. If anybody is looking for guidance then he or she has to consult some source. That is what the fundamentalists in west did-consult old sources. They have not come up with a guidance for mankind. They disappeared. Islam is there. Read it study it. Understand it. And see if you can find anything better. If yes then do not club it with others.
He said in Europe different countries had different domestic roles for religion: France was completely secular while in the United Kingdom the monarch was the head of the Church, while in Germany religious education in schools was guaranteed in the constitution.
This diversity is an indication that one more ideology is not impossible to accommodate-only if the concerned people could over threw the crusade era biases.
Mujeeb Afzal of Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, spoke on the post-Cold War West and Islam. He said the Muslim reaction to European dominance over the last few decades has been either of resistance or collaboration, ...
These are two extremes Afzal Sahab and thus your observation does not amount to much.
... though the collaborationists have prevailed and have “learned from their masters”. He said during the Cold War both superpowers had a negative view of Islam, while the Muslim world was divided between “radicals”, such as Arab nationalists, and “conservatives”, such as the various monarchies that dot the Muslim world. However, revivalism soon emerged, which was less impressed by the West and considered it “decadent”.
Finally you came to some reality but only at the end.
Drawn to revivalism
Shia revivalism triumphed in the shape of 1979’s Islamic Revolution in Iran, while Sunni revivalists joined hands with the conservatives and the United States to take on the USSR in Afghanistan. The Soviet defeat in Afghanistan was not only the victory of capitalism, ...
If that resounding victory fell in their share then why is capitalism buckling at the present moment?
but the revivalists also felt they had a hand in the superpower’s fall, said Mr Afzal.
What else can you conclude from it sir?
After communism’s demise, “democracy and free-market capitalism were considered the only ‘viable’ systems”.
He said Muslim youths were attracted to revivalism as there was no alternative ideology to capitalism.
Jumping from one facile thing to another. Please, please take a stand. At the most you shall be wrong.
“Revivalists don’t pose a threat to the West, but to the imperialist hegemony of the West”.
With you, this time, sir.
However, he observed that “Islam was now part of the West”.
Agree once again. Our European friends might not agree with many of your observations but you might push one thing at a time.
Within the West there were two schools where Islam was concerned: accommodationists and confrontationists. The accommodationists feel that Muslim revivalists’ anger is fuelled by the West whereas confrontationists denounce Islam as “anti-secular and anti-modernity”.
Again you meandered like river Brahamputra.
Dr Nazir Hussain, also of Quaid-i-Azam University, speaking on perceptions of Muslims post-9/11, said that today, perceptions were shaped by the media, not academics. He said Muslims had played a major role in Europe’s progress over the last 50 years, but now some European leaders were saying that multiculturalism had failed and that immigration had to be controlled.
He said there was duplicity in western policy, observing that Bahrain’s monarchy had been protected against popular protests, while Libya had been invaded. “The western media invented Islam as the enemy. Somebody needed a villain. The media are now policymakers”.
Agree with you but our European friends absorb the material better if the things are said with pretentions of profundity.
Turkish scholar Dr Ersin Embel spoke on the problems Turks were facing integrating into German life while Dr Amel Boubekeur, addressing the seminar via Skype, discussed the influence of North Africa on European Muslims.
Source :
Dawn 