By Teresa Watanabe
Times Staff Writer
September 17, 2006
Who is a moderate Muslim?
Is it Maher Hathout, the Los Angeles Muslim leader who has promoted
interfaith relations and women's equality but denounced Israel as a brutal apartheid regime?
Is it Tashbih Sayyed, a journalist based in Alta Loma, Calif., who praises
Israel's behavior toward Palestinians as tolerant and criticizes Muslims for
corrupting Islam?
The question has come under intense debate since 9/11 as the public
struggles to distinguish peaceful Muslims from Al Qaeda terrorists, and is
at the heart of two Southern California skirmishes over who represents
moderate Islam.
In a dinner scheduled for tonight, the American Jewish Congress plans to
honor Sayyed and four others for what it sees as their friendly attitudes
toward Israel and courageous efforts to reform Islam.
Gary Ratner, executive director of the Congress' Western region office in
Los Angeles, said the tribute is part of the organization' s global efforts
to reach out to moderate Muslims in Pakistan, Indonesia, Albania and
elsewhere, including sponsoring a dinner in New York last year for Pakistan
President Pervez Musharraf.
"Israel is going to be a fixture in the Mideast," Ratner said. "If there is
ever going to be peace, there has to be accommodation with Muslims."
The organization' s choice of honorees, however, has offended some Muslims,
in part because three of them no longer practice the faith.
In contrast, a different award has offended some Jewish sensibilities: the
decision by the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission to honor
Hathout as a model of harmonious interfaith relations.
Hathout's critics argue that his controversial statements supporting
Hezbollah and denouncing Israel have exposed him as an extremist. The
Egyptian native and retired cardiologist, saying his opponents have twisted
his record, asserts that he has long condemned terrorism, launched
interfaith dialogues and promoted an American Islamic identity that
celebrates pluralism, democracy and women's rights.
The commission is to vote Monday on whether to reaffirm or rescind the
award.
Despite the dissent, Muslims, Christians and Jews named similar attributes
when asked to define religious moderation. They included problem-solving
without violence, affirmation of human rights, religious freedom and other
Western values, and respectful attitudes toward women.
But on one key issue, there was sharp disagreement: attitudes toward Israel.
Ratner said his group believes support for Israel's right to exist as a
Jewish state is central to the definition of a moderate because it speaks to
the larger qualities of tolerance and acceptance.
Others, however, reject that as a litmus test.
"It's un-American, " said John Esposito, Georgetown University professor of
religion and international affairs. "Your principal and only obligation in
terms of loyalty as an American is to America. You can have a variety of
positions regarding foreign policy."
Still others say labels and litmus tests aren't terribly useful for either
side.
"The question is … can we find points of agreement, a place from which to
build trust and move forward?" asked Rob Eshman, editor of the Jewish
Journal of Greater Los Angeles. "I deal with Jews every day whom I don't
consider moderate, but I don't write them off. And we can't afford to write
off Muslims."
Since 9/11, Esposito and others said, the quest for moderate Muslims has
become widespread as policymakers, journalists, terrorism experts and
religious leaders seek to understand Islam and assess who is "safe" and who
is extremist.
Often, those seeking moderate Muslims are looking for people to affirm their
own values, said Reuven Firestone, a professor of medieval Jewish and
Islamic studies at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los
Angeles.
"When we say we want moderate Muslims, what we are really saying is that we
want Westernized Muslims who have the same kinds of sensibilities we have,"
Firestone said. "But that's not realistic. It's a false but human assumption
that moderates must agree with us on most issues."
To Firestone, moderates are those committed to settling disputes without
violence and willing to hear and consider other points of view, especially
those contrary to their own.
Others said that whatever yardstick is chosen must be consistently applied.
If Muslims who condemn Israeli treatment of Palestinians are extremists, all
Christians, Jews and atheists who feel likewise must be similarly described,
said Khaled Abou El Fadl, a UCLA Islamic law professor and author of "The
Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists."
Many said a key criterion for Muslim moderates is that they in fact be
Muslim.
Among the Jewish Congress honorees are Indian-born British author Salman
Rushdie, a self-described atheist, and two women who say they left the faith
years ago, Wafa Sultan and Nonie Darwish.
Darwish is a Southern California writer and founder of Arabs for Israel.
Sultan is a Corona psychiatrist, writer and activist who has said she is
particularly concerned about women's status in Islam.
"By honoring Muslims who are not practicing Muslims, the given message, even
if unintentional, is that these people are good because they left the
faith," said Firestone, who recently returned from a six-month sabbatical in
Cairo. "But there are hundreds of millions of moral, deeply believing
Muslims."
Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations,
said Jewish groups have long tried to promote alternative Islamic leaders
who may be friendly to Israel but in fact have little following among
Muslims. "It's a slap in the face," he said.
But Ratner defended the selections.
"To me it's a phonetic debate," he said, referring to whether the awardees
were practicing Muslims or not. "It's about the reform of Islam so that the
Muslim world and the West can live in peace and tolerance with each other's
values and beliefs."
Two of the honorees say they are practicing Muslims deeply concerned about
their tradition's future and are unafraid to speak about it. Both Salim
Mansur, a Calcutta native and Canadian political science professor, and
Sayyed, the newspaper editor, said the Muslim world must stop blaming the
West for its own ailments, including poverty, illiteracy, injustice or
extremism.
Sayyed, 64, immigrated to the United States in 1981 to escape what he
described as an increasingly radical practice of Islam in Pakistan. He said
Muslims must reinvigorate their tradition with open debate even on sensitive
questions. That includes, he said, whether Islam was spread by the sword or
ideas, whether shariah is an outdated legal system for Muslims and whether
the Prophet Muhammad's actions were all divinely inspired.
But when he wrote an article last year calling for Islam's reinterpretation,
Sayyed said, he was widely condemned and threatened by fellow Muslims.
Mansur, too, said he was ostracized after writing columns for the Toronto
Sun five years ago condemning the Taliban's destruction of ancient Buddhist
statues in Afghanistan and comparing it to the murderous Khmer Rouge of
Cambodia. The backlash prompted him to stop going to his local mosque.
Both men, however, said they have no intention of falling silent.
"Because I love my faith, I have to raise my voice and challenge it from
within," Sayyed said.
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