MASJID REPORT #6

Anes Hadzifejzovic

Othoniel Joseph

Fati Diaby

Islamic Scriptures

Prof. Azly Rahman

 

 

We visited the Ulu Cami Mosque located in Paterson, New Jersey and proceeded to interview  Imam Fevzija. We all sat down on the floor and began with the questions. One of the first questions we asked him was his interpretations regarding women in Islam and how they are viewed in the Muslim world ?

            Well the prophet, for his times, was a feminist. And there are certainly voices within the Muslim world who believe and argue very strongly for the rights of women. But gender relationships really deal with the cultural norms of a particular group and the times in which they live. If one were to say, for instance, that American women are behind Muslim women and I pick the fact that there have been five Muslim women heads of state, and that the United States is behind the Muslim world in this regard that would not be considered to be an accurate assessment of how women are regarded in a particular society. One has to look at the sum total of the norms and the relationships and the understandings that exist in a given society in a given time.

            Some of what we see may be considered to be inequities. But we have to remember that when Islam spread from Arabia to what we consider the Muslim world today, it spread through countries and societies which had very ancient traditions. Egypt had an ancient tradition, Iran, another ancient country, Persia before that. The subcontinent of India: another ancient culture. Same thing with current-day Turkey, the Byzantine Empire.

            Through that, many cultural norms became to be considered by societies as being Islamic, but they’re really cultural. So in matriarchal societies, which you will see some matriarchal societies like in West Africa or in Egypt, you’ll find women very, very influential. Women hold the purse strings; women determine a lot of what happens, because ancient Egypt had a tradition of having women kings, women queens, queens of Egpyt.

            Whereas in some societies, which tended to be nomadic, it was very much more male-oriented, and the patriarchal and very strong male orientation became predominant. So as you go across much of the Muslim world, you will see this diversity, which really entered into Muslim life through custom, and not through the Quran and the hadith itself. We then asked him if he could explain to us the key things that Islam, Christianity and Judaism have in common, and what they share?

            They share geography. They share Jerusalem, which is important to all. We share a common ancestor, Abraham, who was really the founder and the patriarch of all of us. And I think if we can revert back to the Abrahamic foundation, that is where we will find our common ground. Our languages are very similar, Arabic and Hebrew and Aramaic. The ideas are very similar; and the fundamental impulse of belief in God, that God is the creator, that we are obliged to act in a way that is ethical and just and right. These are certainly among the important aspects of kinship between these three faith traditions. And I would even go further and say apart perhaps from some differences in the notion of God, but as far as the idea of the common good, the idea of social justice that is shared with all faith traditions.

            The next question was based upon West vs. East and we asked in what ways do Western values, morals, and cultural practices, intrude upon, and in what ways are they at a difference with Islamic ideals? ” I think there are two aspects to this question, in the broader sense of the word. There is Western values regarding governance; Western values regarding separation of powers; Western notions regarding what the role of government is in society; Western notion in terms of democratic institutions and principles and ideas. And to a large extent, Muslims are very enamored of these systems, and would like to implement them in their own societies because these principles and norms are completely in sync with the principles of the Quran and the teachings of the prophet. Muslims would like very much to implement these norms within their societies.

            When you come to speak about things like behavioral norms, gender relationships, or the kind of things that people will do, this is a separate issue. And there is another aspect of the West, and that is the attitude of the West towards the non-Western countries, in terms of trying to be presumptuous in telling them how they should even live their lives in ways that they are not accustomed to like modes of dress, for instance. In the 1930s, when the first shah of Iran forced his soldiers at bayonet point to force Iranian women to take off the chador, for instance.

            People don’t like to be told how to dress. This is a matter of personal individual conscience. Even we here in the West do not insist that our students in public schools wear uniforms. We give them that level of freedom. People do not like to be told how to do certain things in their personal lives.”

            We proceeded to follow up on the question and asked What  the key differences between being a Muslim in America and being a Muslim in the Muslim world? His answer was that there are many aspects to that. There is the political aspect, the sociological aspect, the social and family aspect, the economic aspect. So there are many aspects to the to the difference between living in a Muslim country as a native especially, and living in this country.

            “If I were to look at maybe the broadest difference: there is a sense of freedom in the United States. So one practices one’s faith in the United States as an act of deliberate choice. If you are not doing so, it’s not so much because of social pressure. There may be a certain amount of social pressure. But at a certain point in one’s life, one is relatively free to live one’s life as one chooses in this country.

            And that sense of freedom makes one’s religiosity or the defining lines of one’s religiosity much sharper. Religion is a much more personal thing here. It is also a deeper experience within the personal envelope. One is forced to attach oneself to one’s religion in a personally deeper way in terms of the existential issues it has to be anchored on a much deeper existential foundation.

            Another aspect about living in the United States is that one experiences a lot of negative media attention to one’s Islamicity. And that has resulted, and can result in a reaction one way or the other by many people. Many Muslims feel in this country like the Christians did in Rome when they were fed to the lions. And here the lions are the media. We hope that perhaps things will change in the United States, as they did in Rome, as well”.

Considering the answer we asked What the fundamentals of Islam are and what does it teach to be a Muslim? He explained that the fundamental idea which defines a human being as a Muslim is the declaration of faith. That there is a creator, whom we call God, or Allah, in Arabic and that the creator is one and single. And we declare this faith by the declaration of faith, where we bear witness that there is no God but God. And that we are accountable to God for our actions.

We asked him to elaborate upon his answer and explain it in further detail. He continued by saying that it is the universal Quranic definition of a person who is a Muslim. Because God says in the Quran that there is only one true religion, God’s religion. It’s the same theme that God revealed to all of the prophets, even before Muhammad. They all came to express the truth about ultimate reality, that the ultimate reality God created this universe and God created humanity for a very specific purpose and mandate, which is to recognize what he or she truly is, a being created, as we say in the Judeo-Christian world, in the image of God. The Quran uses a different language. It says, created out of a divine in breathing, because the Quran says when God created the shape, the form of Adam from clay, God says, “When I shall have breathed into him from my spirit.” Then he announced to the angels, “Fall in prostration to Adam.”

So the defining aspect of a human being is that the human being has within its envelope a piece of the divine breath. This is the Quranic definition of what you might call the quote, unquote, “divine image in the human envelope.” And the human mandate is to recognize this essential definition of self, and to acknowledge the very special relationship that exists between that self and the creator. Detailed enough ?

Lastly we asked how Islam differs from Christianity or Judaism. His answer was that the Quran does not speak about Christianity or Judaism. You will not find that word once mentioned in the Quran. But you’ll find many, many instances of Christians and Jews, because the definitions the Quran uses are human based definitions. Not conceptual definitions, very much it speaks about the realities. So God, for example, is creator. God is seeing. God is knowing. God is all-powerful. You don’t have words of concepts as much. God is beautiful. So the descriptions or the adjectives are what are used to describe the creator. Religion is defined by the relationship between God and man. And Islam is the submission and the acknowledgment of the human being to the creator