"The Lives of Others," a haunting movie

Once in a while a movie comes along that mesmerizes you with its power and brilliance. Such a movie is “The Lives of Others.” Typically, when you rave about a movie to friends, the first question they ask is: Who is in it? That will not work in this case because the movie was made in Germany and the actors and director are unknown to me and, I suspect, to most moviegoers in the U.S. But what performances and what a story! Set in 1984 in bleak, soulless East Germany, five years before the Berlin Wall fell, it’s a chilling political thriller that grapples with bigger questions of Faustian bargains, metamorphosis, redemption and perhaps most poignantly of all, love. The strands all come together in a shattering climax that left me drained and thirsting for more. The very last sentence in the movie, spoken by one of the protagonists in a seemingly casual way, breaks the heart. However you may define it, this is what I think art is meant to be.

Filtering out the Arsenic of Corruption

As Bangladeshis watch enthralled the reeling in of the corrupt 'big fish' by the military-backed caretaker government, and let out a collective exultation of “finally!”, an event in the United States has added to this exultation.

Dr. Abul Hussam, a chemistry professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, won the 2007 “Grainger Challenge Prize for Sustainability” for developing an inexpensive, easy-to-make system for filtering arsenic from well water. Of Bangladeshi origin, the chemist plans to donate the $1 million prize money for distributing these filters to needy communities around the world.

Dr. Hussam was moved by the plight of millions of Bangladeshis poisoned by tube-well water laced with arsenic - leading to serious skin conditions, tumors, breathing difficulties, cancer, and ultimately to agonizing death - and made it his quest to find a solution.

After experimenting with hundreds of prototypes, he finally found the right combination of sand, charcoal, brick and cast iron to filter out almost any trace of arsenic from well water. In the northern district of Kushtia now, these systems are being produced at the rate of about 200 per week, at a cost of about $40 each. Over 30,000 filtration systems have already been distributed throughout the country.

Coming in the wake of Dr. Yunus’s Nobel Peace Prize last year, Dr. Abul Hussam’s achievement should lift the heart of even the most stubborn pessimist.

In light of Bangladesh’s current attempt to make corrupt kingpins accountable for their past misdeeds, the success of Dr. Hussam’s discovery suggests a compelling question: Will Bangladesh be able to filter out the arsenic of corruption, greed, nepotism and misrule once and for all from the roots of its government, no matter who may be in power?

Conscientious Bangladeshis hung their heads in shame when the Berlin-based Transparency International ranked the country as the most corrupt in the world five years in a row, beginning with 2000. They witnessed with horror the powerful and the unscrupulous looting the country’s treasury, the Faustian bargains political parties made with one another and the terribly widening gap between the rich and the poor. (What a contrast, for instance, to a Bangladeshi taxi driver in New York named Osman chowdhury who returned a lost bag of diamond rings worth $500,000 to the owner after she had left it in the trunk of his cab. If only Bangladeshi politicians and their sycophants could learn honesty and integrity from this humble man!)

Both the Awami League and the Bangladesh National Party indulged in thievery and gangsterism with impunity, and functionaries of both parties – mercenaries, really - created a twilight zone in which their words were the law. Only the ‘fittest’ thrived in this twilight zone, the fittest being those in or close to power, and their henchmen down the food chain.

Now there is hope that the darkness may be lifting, that those who abused power and amassed fortunes at the expense of the nation and its citizens will be brought to justice.

Because it is the army, backed by the interim government, that is spearheading the crackdown and the cleansing mission, some Bangladeshis are already protesting that democracy is in danger.

What planet are they on? Democracy cannot flourish in a vacuum. It can thrive only in the fertile soil of accountability, responsibility, and good governance. When the soil is saturated with the arsenic of greed, nepotism and solipsism, what thrives is “thugocracy,” not democracy. This has been the sad lot of Bangladeshis since 1991, following the overthrow of the military dictatorship of General Ershad.

The country has been kept afloat not by any government in power, but by the innate genius of common Bangladeshis – the human capital - and their entrepreneurship and creativity against all odds.

What is critical is for the interim government to proceed with prudence, and not try to bite off more than it can chew. One measure of this prudence can be seen in the systematic way in which the army is being used to snag progressively ‘bigger fish’ with each passing day. Ultimately the biggest fish – an unholy group of crooks and criminal masterminds across party lines – will have to be hauled in for justice to prevail.

Visiting Bangladesh last November, friends and relatives repeatedly told me that if only the government got off the back of the people and the powerful were held accountable for their actions, the country could achieve wonders. While neighboring India was earning billions of dollars in foreign exchange through the Internet-driven boom in IT services and products, Bangladesh was moving backward through debilitating strikes and plundering of the nation’s assets by the privileged.

Will decades of national nightmare be soon over, and will a new and responsible government usher in an era of enlightened democracy, of accountability, of law and order, of economic and educational opportunity for all? Let’s hope the groundwork is now being laid for such an outcome, so that future generations can look to this interim government as one that, after fits and starts, found its calling and made good on its promise.

Of Congressmen and Cabbies

When Keith Ellison, the Minnesota democrat and the first Muslim elected to Congress, took his oath of office in January on a Quran that once belonged to Thomas Jefferson, I experienced a sense of continuity with the past. It enabled me to glimpse, even if fleetingly, the dreams and aspirations of America’s founders and their stubborn influence in steering the nation toward worthy goals.

Irony, of course, complicates the picture. Consider the statements of Congressman Virgil Goode representing Albemarle County of Virginia, the birthplace of Jefferson.

In denouncing Ellison’s decision, Mr. Goode declared that Americans needed to “wake up” or else there would “likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Quran.”

Was the Congressman worried about more elected Muslim officials, or was he disturbed that the Quran could become the norm for Muslim officials taking their oaths?

Both, as it turns out. Goode’s fundamental concern was Muslim immigration to America. “I believe that … we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped.”

For the records, Ellison is not an immigrant. An African-American who traces his U.S. ancestry to 1741, the 42-year-old Congressman converted to Islam at 19 when he was a student at Wayne State University in Detroit.

The irony has now come full circle.

It appears that cabbies at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport in Ellison’s home state, one of the nation’s busiest, have been refusing to transport passengers carrying alcohol. Mostly of Somali descent, these Muslim cab drivers claim that transporting alcohol violates Islamic law.

What nonsense! Refusing tired travelers a service because they may be carrying alcohol violates only the laws of courtesy and reason. Islam bans drinking alcohol, as Mahmoud Ayoub, an Islamic scholar at Temple University said, not carrying it.

“What it comes down to,” explained Dr. Khalid Siddiqi, an Islamic scholar from San Jose, California, when I asked him about the issue, “is that many Muslims are unfortunately lacking in knowledge and are prone to anger and emotion that cloud their judgment. We saw an example of this during the Danish cartoon controversy. In this particular case, the Quranic verse that comes to mind is: O you who believe! Ask not questions about things which, if made plain to you, may cause you trouble. (5:101) The cabbies have a responsibility to take their passengers from point A to point B. This is the agreement they have signed with the airport authority and they must fulfill it. That’s all.”

As an American-Muslim, I took pride in the support Congressman Keith Ellison received from many of his fellow-representatives and the dignity with which he confronted the bigotry directed against him. This pride was being undermined by the ‘holier-than-thou’, sanctimonious attitude of some Muslim cab drivers. Fortunately the attitude has significantly waned, which is a good thing. As the syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. wrote: “It is foolish to needlessly invite negative attention. Why write Rush Limbaugh’s script for him?”

The Disgrace of Holocaust Denial

While studying at Temple University in Philadelphia in the ‘70s, I became good friends with a fellow-student named Bob Morraine. Bob had a terrific sense of humor who could tease out laughter from the bleakest of situations. I found hipany delightful.

One day I learned that Bob’s father was a dentist with a thriving practice in a suburb of Philadelphia. When I told him that I had never had a dental checkup in Bangladesh, Bob was aghast. Ignoring my protestations, he made an appointment for me to see his father.

When Dr. Morraine took a look at my teeth the following week, it would be an understatement to say that he was shocked. I was overdue for extensive dental surgery. The treatment had to be spread out over several weeks and would have cost a few thousand dollars even then, but knowing my student status and still wanting to honor me as a paying patient, he charged me a grand total of … fifty dollars.

Bob was Jewish and we rarely saw eye-to-eye on the Palestinian issue, having animated give-and-take whenever the opportunity arose. There was one topic, though, that cast a shadow on Bob’s ever-smiling face, and that was the topic of the Holocaust. Although I was aware of the general nature of this crime against humanity (my most vivid exposure to it until then was the 1961 movie, Judgment at Nuremberg), I would never have fathomed its affect on the Jewish psyche had I not known Bob. Even though removed from the event by a generation or two, the Holocaust seemed as real to Bob as it was to its victims. I learned to respect that and developed an understanding of the enormity of the genocide.

Bob and I lost contact after graduation. I came west to California (“Go west, young man!” as Horace Greely, a newspaperman from Lincoln’s time, exhorted.) As far as I know, Bob stayed East.

The memory of my friend came flooding to my mind when I learned that the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had sponsored a 2-day “International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust” in Tehran, beginning December 11. I could almost see the sorrow on Bob’s face as he lapsed into uncharacteristic silence on hearing the news. Nothing could make the atrocity of this conference more painful for me than imagining the effect it must have had on a friend I had known decades ago. I felt ashamed and angry.

The question remains: why? Why hold a conference like this? Surely it cannot be to prove that the Holocaust never happened. There is far too much evidence for even the most diehard denier to seriously consider such a notion. Is it to prove then that, while it may have taken place, it wasn’t as “bad” as it has been made out to be, that maybe, instead of 6 million Jews, only a million or two perished? Would that somehow make the Holocaust a lesser crime against humanity? What lunacy is this, trying to open a hidden wound with such cruelty?

I was heartened to see the major American Muslim organizations unequivocally condemning the Iran conference. I was most inspired by Imam Mohamed Magid of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society who organized a visit by several Muslim leaders to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to acknowledge and commemorate Jewish suffering under the Nazis. As reported by Mary Beth Sheridan in Washington Post on December 21, the museum’s director, Sara J. Bloomfield, said: “We stand here with three survivors of the Holocaust and my great Muslim friends to condemn this outrage in Iran.” Johanna Neumann recalled how Albanian Muslims saved her Jewish family when they fled to Albania from Germany. “Everybody knew who we were. Nobody would even have thought of denouncing us to the Nazis,” said Neumann. “These people deserve every respect anybody can give them.”

Equally compelling was the letter written by a Palestinian militant to the president of Iran (reported by Rabbi Michael Lerner in a message to the Tikkun community) who had spent 18 years in an Israeli prison.

Mahmoud Al-Safadi wrote: “I am furious about your insistence on claiming that the Holocaust never took place and about your doubts about the number of Jews who were murdered in the extermination and concentration camps, organized massacres, and gas chambers, consequently denying the universal historical significance of the Nazi period … Whatever the number of victims – Jewish and non-Jewish – the crime is monumental … Ask yourself, I beg you, the following question: were hundreds of thousands of testimonies written about death camps, gas chambers, ghettos, and mass murders committed by the German army, tens of thousands of works of research based on German documents, numerous filmed sequences, some of which were shot by German soldiers – were all these masses of evidence completely fabricated?”

While the Tehran conference reflects the opinion of Ahmadinejad and his cohorts, it is a mistake to think that it also reflects the opinion of ordinary Iranians. During the week of the Holocaust conference and afterwards, students at several leading Iranian universities staged massive demonstrations against the president for his crackdown on academic and personal freedom. “Forget the Holocaust – do something for us,” they chanted, and even “Death to the dictator!” (reported in New York Times by Nazila Fathi, December 21).

Denying the Holocaust only diminishes the denier. In this regard, one irony that must have escaped the president of Iran is that Jews, Christians and Muslims are celebrating Hanukkah, Christmas and Eid-ul-Adha, respectively, in the same month in which he held his infamous conference. I find the symbolism deeply persuasive, in that enmity, despair and hate will be trumped by peace, hope and goodwill.

PS: More than a hundred Iranian intellectuals recently signed a statement condemning the Holocaust conference sponsored by the government of Iran.

Gender Equality, Dr. Muhammad Yunus and the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize

Gender equality in the heterogeneous Muslim world is a work in progress. The 2006 Nobel Peace Prize gave a boost to this work when it was awarded to Bangladeshi economist Dr. Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank he founded in 1976.

Mainstream media have been abuzz with inspiring stories of millions of poor Bangladeshi women lifting themselves out of poverty by borrowing little sums of money from Grameen (a Bengali word meaning ‘village-based’) Bank and starting their own businesses, a model now emulated in over 100 countries. (97% of Grameen clients are women.)

What has received little attention is the contribution Dr. Yunus has made in helping disenfranchised women challenging a patriarchal society that often practices misogyny against them in the name of Islam.

Whereas the husband’s (or the father’s) word was the de facto law before, particularly in villages where illiteracy is high and sacred text is manipulated to suit the male viewpoint, economic freedom gave women entrepreneurs the courage to question religious chauvinism and resist attempts to undermine their dignity.

Speaking to a reporter a few years ago, Dr. Yunus explained the psychological barriers to his bank this way: “The first hostile person to our program is the husband. We challenge his authority. In the family, he is a macho tyrant. He starts to see that she is not as stupid as he thought. He says, ‘Now she cannot nag me about money, because she understands how hard it is to make.’ The tension eases and they become a team.”

A team can function only when there is mutual respect. A husband accustomed to obedience from his wife begins to respect her opinion on religious matters, too, since she has shown her worth by financially supporting the family.

This has been the noteworthy byproduct of the microcredit revolution that Muhammad Yunus launched three decades ago. Unwittingly, he forced a predominantly conservative Muslim society to confront its ingrained habits and customs, inspiring countless women to question dogma and realizing their God-given rights.

Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian lawyer-activist and the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, evoked the gender issue in her Nobel Lecture: “The discriminatory plight of women in Islamic states, whether in the spheres of civil law or in the realm of social, political and cultural justice, has its roots in the patriarchal and male-dominated culture prevailing in these societies, not in Islam. This culture does not tolerate freedom and democracy, just as it does not believe in the equal rights of men and women, and the liberation of women from male domination (fathers, husbands, brothers …), because it would threaten the historical and traditional position of the rulers and guardians of that culture … The patriarchal culture and the discrimination against women, particularly in the Islamic countries, cannot continue for ever.”

It certainly cannot, and the work of Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the “banker to the poor” who proved that poverty was not destiny, that, in fact, destiny was what one made of it, vindicates Ebadi’s hope and assertion.

In the post-9/11 world, Muslim women in affluent western countries are engaged in the battle of ideas to shape their faith and reclaim it from traditionalists and extremists.

In March of last year, for instance, Dr. Amina Wadud, professor of Islamic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of Quran and Women: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective, delivered a sermon and led a public, mixed-gender Friday congregational prayer in New York City.

This symbolic but seminal act received widespread support, and criticism, from Muslims around the world, stirring vigorous debate and soul-searching.

Asra Nomani, a journalist and author of Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam, is on a mission to reclaim the rightful role of woman in Islam defined by the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad but denied by centuries of cultural accretions.

“We joke that we want to take the “slam” out of Islam – that’s our American generation’s way of understanding it,” she says. “But it’s really that simple: we’re just so tired of going to our mosques and feeling unworthy or worthless or less than faithful. It says in the Quran, “There is no compulsion in religion,” and yet the fanatics in all religions want to make it compulsory that you follow their path of faith.”

Theological debates and reclaiming interpretive rights to sacred text by educated Muslim women activists constitute one path toward gender equality. The other is by empowering poor women engaged in daily existential battles to achieve financial freedom so that they too can challenge the myth of patriarchy in traditional societies and experience the egalitarianism that permeates Islam.

Only when the two paths converge – intellectual and existential, selective and grassroots - will true gender equality flourish in the heterogeneous Muslim world. Only then can we expect the sequence of events such as the following becoming a reality.

A seamstress in a village in Chittagong, Bangladesh, delivers garments to a demanding but honest merchant, and makes a tidy profit. The ripple from this transaction reaches Kandahar, Afghanistan, where a twenty-something teacher briskly walks along an earthen road to her one-room school, smiling to herself as she anticipates the fresh, eager faces of girls and boys waiting to learn arithmetic from her. A local cleric approaching from the opposite direction alights from his bicycle and respectfully acknowledges her.

The ripple from this gesture spreads to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where a middle-aged housewife patiently maneuvers her car heavy traffic and heads for the English-medium school in the center of town to pick up her two children. She has an appointment to see the principal about introducing more challenging curricula in the school and mentally rehearses her presentation.

The ripple from the rehearsal propagates to Katsina, Nigeria, where a judge raises her gavel to bring order to her courtroom in a complex inheritance case as she prepares to dispense justice tempered by mercy.

Perspective on Ramadan Crescent and the Pope's Speech

Religious passions have a direct bearing on our spirituality, so it is important that we evaluate these passions from time to time to steer ourselves in the right direction.

One particular issue that ignites Muslim passion is marking the beginning of Ramadan. It determines not only the day we begin fasting, but also the days we celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr, the feast of fasting, and Eid-ul-Adha, the feast of sacrifice.

Most Muslims have traditionally split between two schools of thought, one going with moon-sighting announcements from the Middle East, typically Saudi Arabia, and the other with local moon-sighting. In most cases, the former begins Ramadan a day earlier, and celebrates the two Eids also a day earlier, than the latter.

About a month ago, the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA) announced that it would use astronomical calculations to determine the beginning of the Islamic lunar months “with the consideration of the sightability of the crescent anywhere on the globe.” The sightability criterion was for the new moon to be born before 12:00 noon GMT somewhere on the globe before the end of the night in North America.

The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) endorsed FCNA and referred interested Muslims to its Website for a “50+ page analysis and a PowerPoint presentation” for details.

The response was swift. The Islamic Shariah Council of Northern California, along with other organizations, issued a statement refuting the decision of FCNA to pre-fix the beginning of the lunar months on the basis of the said criterion, and forcefully reiterated its decision to continue with local moon-sighting.

A close reading of FCNA and the Sharia Council declarations, however, reveals a startling fact: The two groups have used the same set of core Quranic verses and sayings of the prophet to justify their respective conclusions and refute the other!

So what’s new, a cynic might ask.

What is new is that for the first time, FCNA has defined a specific astronomical calculation to mark the beginnings of lunar months, particularly the month of Ramadan. This has had the unfortunate effect of revealing more sharply than ever the latent acrimony between the two schools of thought and polarizing Muslim communities further.

Why does this particular issue arouse such passion? More importantly, can we do something about it?

I believe the heightened passion is due to a myth that has gone unchallenged for too long, which is that to begin fasting on the same day and to celebrate the two Eids together reflect Muslim unity at it best. Conversely, not doing so implies that Muslims are fragmented and disunited.

It is time we exploded this myth once and for all. Muslim unity has nothing to do with the same-day commencement of Ramadan or its same-day ending. It is a false criterion, a red herring that leads to bitter finger-pointing such as “You have sold your soul to the Saudis,” “No, you have sacrificed independent thinking on the altar of your ignorance,” and so on.

Once the myth is gone, the invectives can disappear and the stress that accompanies the start of the sacred month can be a thing of the past.

But we can also look at the issue in a more positive way. Consider this saying of the Prophet: “The differences of opinion among the learned within my community are a sign of God’s grace.” In this light, we see the two schools of thought not as a cause for anger or sorrow but as a blessing. After all, both schools consist of Muslim scholars, imams, astronomers and professionals drawn from different fields. Why not celebrate their good intentions, even if their conclusions differ?

This points to two larger problems, however: first, the inability of many Muslims to articulate their position without indulging in overheated rhetoric and second, responding to religious provocations with violence. The reaction to Pope Benedict’s “evil and inhuman” speech is only the latest of such examples.

Muslims had a right to be offended by Pope Benedict XVI quoting a 14th century Byzantine emperor’s insult of Prophet Muhammad and “his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” Many Muslim leaders and organizations responded to the Pope’s speech at the University of Regensberg in Germany on September 12 with calm dignity and accepted his subsequent expression of regret, but there were also many shrill and incendiary denunciations that were disgraceful. And there could certainly be no excuse whatsoever for the firebombing of churches in the West Bank and Gaza and the killing of the Italian nun Leonella Sgorbati in Mogadishu.

Even though we cannot control the behavior of a minority of deviants and extremists among the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims, it must never keep us from unequivocally condemning their acts of terror and bring them to justice whenever possible. Many Muslims, in fact, were quick to condemn these acts and demanded the apprehension of the perpetrators. Surely the Quranic warning that “if anyone kills an innocent human being it is as if he has killed all mankind” applies to the killers of the 65-year-old nun in Somalia.

As we transcend our polarizing passions in the month of renewal that is upon us, and as we work on improving our ability to articulate our opinions, we should also recognize that in a world of contending truths, provocations through words, cartoons, pictures or movies should be met not with violence or displays of religious chauvinism but with dialogue and decency.

The Relevance of Naguib Mahfouz

In 1988, the Swedish Academy awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature to Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz “who, through works rich in nuance – now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous – has formed an Arabian narrative art that applies to all mankind.”

Unlike many recent recipients of the Literature Nobel Prize, whose political leanings figured prominently in the award, Naguib Mahfouz deserved his honor, as his peers and discerning critics throughout the literary world acknowledged.

Until his Nobel, though, Naguib Mahfouz was not well-known beyond Arabia but that changed when international recognition made his translated works available to readers everywhere. And what a good thing that was, considering that so many of us would have missed out on one of the most perceptive observers of the human condition.

His setting may have been the labyrinth alleyways of Cairo but it could have been anywhere – old Dhaka, sprawling Mumbai, storied London, kaleidoscopic New York – because he wrote of dreams and longings tempered by reality and inexplicable forces that shaped character and destiny. What could be more universal than that?

Mahfouz wrote more than 30 novels and several collections of short stories, memoirs, essays and screenplays, but his masterpiece is the Cairo Trilogy. Named after actual streets in Cairo – Palace Walk, Palace of Desire and Sugar Street – the trilogy deals with three generations of the Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad family and extends from 1917 to 1945, during which Egypt was fighting for independence from British rule.

The three volumes record in rich detail the daily events in a middle-class Egyptian family, offering insight into a way of life vanishing under western influence and encroaching modernity.

But nostalgia is not what Mahfouz is after. Any society is better off jettisoning some aspects of the old way, misogyny and corruption in the name of religion, to name two. Mahfouz is more ambitious. Delving deep into the hearts of his protagonists - desire for control, hunger for recognition, lure of extremism, opposing pulls of selfishness and altruism, tradition and modernity, faith and reason, body and soul, temporal and eternal, love and responsibility - and weaving those elements together with tenderness, humor and sensitivity, he reminds us that the one constant in life is change, that unless we are open to change, fate will drag us into its abyss. In contrast, if we embrace change without compromising universal values of decency, justice, freedom and moderation, our lives will be enriched in unexpected ways.

The Cairo trilogy is a gripping read. Once I began with Palace Walk (Doubleday issued the paperbacks in the USA in 1992 after he won the Nobel), I could not stop until I had finished reading Sugar Street.

As is common with any great work of literature, one experiences a certain sense of loss in leaving the saga of the al-Jawad family. So many currents and undercurrents run through the 1,500-page narrative, “now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous,” that the reader willingly and rapturously submits to the flow.

Consider, for instance, Mahfouz’s lyrical evocation of bittersweet love in Palace of Desire: Why had he (Kamal) been looking forward so impatiently to this day? What did he hope to gain from it? … Did he dream of a miracle that would unexpectedly cause his beloved (Aida) to be friendly again for no conceivable reason, exactly as she had grown angry? Or was he trying to stoke the fires of hell so that he might taste cold ashes all the sooner? … Whenever he went to visit the mansion he approached it with anxious eyes, as he wavered between hope and despair. He would steal a glance at the front balcony and another at the window overlooking the side path … As he sat with his friends, his long reveries featured the happy surprise that just did not take place. When they split up after their conversation, he would keep looking stealthily and sadly at the window and the balconies, especially at the window over the side path, for it frequently served as a frame for his beloved’s image in his daydreams … These are feelings familiar to any lovesick youth experiencing the pangs of first love.

Naguib Mahfouz had nothing but contempt for the monarchs, tyrants and militants of the Arab world. Although he could be contradictory at times, he never wavered in his faith in the basic dignity and courage of the common man. It was around them - the oppressed housewife in a patriarchal household, the waiter in the café, the destitute child in the bazaar, the young girl forced into prostitution who rebels, the boatman plying the Nile - that he articulated his vision of Arab renaissance.

Some Arab countries banned his books for supporting Anwar Sadat’s peace overture to Israel in 1977. But this conscience of Egypt who believed in the separation of mosque and state repeatedly warned his countrymen that postponing political and social reform would be “playing with fire.”

For his troubles, he was stabbed in the neck by a young assailant in 1994 while sitting in a car, waiting for a friend to drive him to his beloved Kasr al-Nil café in Cairo overlooking the Nile. He had spent every Friday evening for thirty years at this café, the iconic “Friday sitting,” meeting with writers, intellectuals and disciples. Already in failing health, Mahfouz never fully recovered from the wound, slowly and agonizingly turning blind and deaf and losing the use of his writing hand. Even in such condition, he refused to see the world in Manichean, black-and-white terms. Revenge held no meaning for him.

Mahfouz’s passing away on August 30 at the age of 94 in Cairo is also a reminder for American Muslims to confront a critical issue facing them.

Five years after 9/11, we find ourselves divided into two broad camps. There are those who want to be both American and Muslim, who seek integration with mainstream culture without undermining basic Islamic principles, and who wish to become ambassadors of their faith to America.

There are others who have chosen to withdraw into their mosques and enclaves promoting a ghetto mentality, and who stridently assert their Islamic identity through dress and mannerisms in response to government profiling and suspicion and distrust of some of their fellow-Americans.

Based on what he said and did in a long and meticulous life, it is clear that Mahfouz would have sided with the first group. As he saw it, retreat and rejection served only to strengthen prejudice and misunderstanding. Hope, in his world, always trumped despair.

“What are the stars,” wrote the great Arabian writer, “in fact, but single worlds that chose solitude.” But this star of the world’s literary firmament shunned solitude in favor of spirited discussions with aspiring and established intellectuals on the turbulent issues of the times.

Mahfouz never ventured beyond Egypt - he sent his two daughters to Stockholm to accept the Nobel award on his behalf – but his mind ranged far and wide even as it plumbed the depths of the human soul. One can only hope that a new generation of young Arabs and Muslims will heed his call to reflect and reform and bring about the renaissance that so animated his writings.

The Terror of August

On Tuesday, August 8, I flew from London’s Heathrow airport to San Francisco. The check-in was a breeze, and with a few hours to spare before boarding, I had time for some last-minute shopping. Perfume. English biscuits, toffee and tea.

The flight took off on time and we arrived at San Francisco a few minutes ahead of schedule. The only “inconvenience” I suffered was when I was among about 50 of my fellow-passengers selected at random for baggage checking.

My annoyance must have shown on my face because the security officer said almost plaintively as she checked the contents of my suitcases: “We are just doing our duty, sir!”

Considering the number of times I have flown in and out of the country since 9/11, and this being the first time I had been thus “inconvenienced,” I apologized for my impatience and assured her of my full cooperation. The entire process took about 10 minutes.

Little did I know that in less than 48 hours, all hell would break loose at Heathrow and other British airports and also at major American airports. British police had apparently broken up a conspiracy to blow up 10 jetliners over the Atlantic, and over two dozen suspects were taken into custody, all Muslims living in Britain. Arrests were also made in Pakistan, including British citizen Rashid Rauf, identified as a key player in the plot. Britain gratefully acknowledged Pakistan’s help in apprehending the suspects.

A nightmare ensued for travelers, particularly those stranded in Britain, but with a rippling effect throughout the world. I couldn’t thank God enough for leaving London when I did.

The inevitable backlash followed. Several American mosques were vandalized and Muslim women wearing hijab were taunted and threatened. A Reverend labeled Muslims bloodthirsty barbarians and a radio talk-show host dubbed Islam “a religion that is designed to cut off your head.”

But there were also hopeful signs. The FBI worked with mosque-goers in major cities to boost security. Police in San Jose, California, where I live, proactively began guarding local mosques. San Jose may be unique: Its Police Chief, Rob Davis, had fasted the entire month of Ramadan in 2004 to show solidarity with the estimated 15,000 Muslims living in this pluralistic city.

As details of the terror plot unfold in the coming days, Muslims will be wondering what continues to lurk in the minds of some of their co-religionists. Is it the insecurity of their psyche in a modern world? Is it Islam reduced to a political ideology, instead of being a source of moral guidance? Is it the clash of utopian fantasy against dystopian reality?

One can only guess.

If indeed certain radical Muslims sought midair martyrdom with horrific consequences, we have to acknowledge that no amount of Western sins (and there are many) attributable to foreign policy or racism or similar grievances can justify such acts or intentions.

Surely, with the memory of last year’s bombings still vivid in their minds, the English can be forgiven if they feel jittery and angry. But they will also do well to remember that it was a British Muslim who provided the initial critical intelligence that led to the apprehension of the plotters.

As always, in the wake of atrocities and foiled conspiracies, the bitter question of societal integration of immigrants, or lack of it, comes up.

While in London, I watched on TV the third cricket Test between Pakistan and England at Headingley that England won by 167 runs. In the annals of cricket, this would hardly register a flutter, except that the architect of English victory was a 24-year-old fast bowler named Sajid Mahmood.

Born in England of a Pakistani-born father, Sajid was heckled by a small section of the immigrant crowd as a traitor!

Normally, Sajid’s father would have supported the land of his birth against England but Sajid insisted that must change. "I told him he had to support England during this series,” Sajid told a reporter.

I bring this up because of a provocative reference that the 1998 Economics Nobel-laureate Amartya Sen made in his recent book called Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (pp 153-155).

It is the “Cricket test” proposed by Lord Tebbit, a Conservative political leader. Tebbit contends that British immigrants from the subcontinent and the Caribbean should support England, not the lands of their ancestry. Only when that happens can integration into British society be considered a success.

Tebbit’s test may be considered idiosyncratic by some in the immigrant community but more and more, it can emerge as a divider between assimilation and retreat, between flexibility and rigidity, and even between living and delusional martyrdom.

Standing in the Shoes of the 'Enemy'

In Harper Lee’s classic “To Kill a Mockingbird,” the precocious Scout Finch is recalling something her father told her once:

“Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.”

I have been thinking of this fatherly wisdom and its dawning on a daughter ever since the breakout of the horrific fighting in Israel and Lebanon.

Have Hezbollah (and Hamas and other warring factions) and the Israelis ever considered standing in each others' shoes, I wondered, and walked around in them?

When a Hezbollah fighter launches a rocket toward Haifa, can he imagine being in the shoes of an old woman in that city shuffling in her modest kitchen to prepare a meal, unaware that death is whistling down on her?

At the precise moment that an Israeli pilot presses a button to unleash a missile over Lebanon, can he imagine being in the shoes of a child in an apartment building playing with his toys, oblivious that he is about to be blown into smithereens?

I think not.

There is not only a moral failing here, but also a failure of the imagination.

And as long as these failures persist, the Middle East violence we are now witnessing will continue with terrifying regularity.

But let’s face it: It is supremely difficult for most of us to stand in the shoes of our enemies, much less walk around in them.

We have neither the morality nor the imagination for it, no matter how virtuous and mentally agile we may think ourselves to be.

Yet there is a way to get to that exalted state, a prelude if you will, and that is to engage in honest self-examination, to ask: “Before I point my finger at the ‘other,’ let me consider my own culpability.”

Although this too is a rare trait, there are inspiring practitioners who represent a beacon of hope in our darkening world.

Consider this from Ze’ev Maoz, a professor of political science at Tel Aviv University (Haaretz, July 25):

“There’s practically a holy consensus right now that the war in the North is a just war and that morality is on our side. The bitter truth must be said: this holy consensus is based on short-range selective memory, an introverted worldview, and double standards … Israel is using excessive force without distinguishing between civilian population and enemy … We invaded a sovereign state, and occupied its capital in 1982 … Approximately 14,000 civilians were killed between June and September of 1982 … On July 28, 1989, we kidnapped Sheikh Obeid, and on May 12, 1994, we kidnapped Mustafa Dirani … Hezbollah crossed a border that is recognized by the International community. That is true. What we are forgetting is that ever since our withdrawal from Lebanon, the Israeli Air Force has conducted photo-surveillance sorties on a daily basis in Lebanese airspace … border violations are border violations. Here, too, morality is not on our side …”

Now consider this from Youssef Ibrahim, a distinguished Egyptian-born reporter (New York Sun, July 14):

“Suddenly, war is upon us in the Greater Middle East. A coalition of Arabian Muslim jihadists has set the trap. Using Israeli soldiers as hostages, the Iranian, Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, and Syrian jihadists are enveloping the region, opening a two-front war with Israel, delivering Lebanon into Hezbollah's grip, checkmating vital American interests, and bringing Iraq to the brink of civil war … Hobbled by fifth columns of Muslim fundamentalists within, the Arabs themselves cannot take on Syria or Iran … If Israel goes for the Syrian jugular, Iraq will get a break from the unending stream of insurgents from the Syrian border, and Lebanon could stand up to Hezbollah.”

Partisans may rant and rave but these are bold voices that challenge the status quo and the reflexive response, compelling Jews and Muslims alike to look into their hearts to seek paths to enduring peace.

Just as we are convinced of the goodness of our conviction, we have to recognize that our “enemies” are also convinced of the goodness of their conviction. “Legitimate grievance” is not the monopoly of any one side. In spite of the historical baggage, or perhaps because of it, both the Palestinians and the Israelis have claims upon it.

As long as Arabs derive their pride only from fighting Israel, the Arab world is doomed. As long as Israel thinks technological and military superiority are the final arbiter, Israel is doomed.

That is why the bold voices emanating from Israel and the Arab world stating difficult truths are so important. They point toward a different possibility, a possibility of replacing unending warfare with meaningful peace.

Only when such voices reach critical mass can we hope for the antagonists to make the effort to stand in each others’ shoes. Only then perhaps will an Israeli understand the anguish of Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora when he says, “Are we children of a lesser God? Is an Israeli teardrop worth more than a drop of our blood?” Only then perhaps will an Arab understand the grim determination of an Israeli pollster when he says, “We are fighting for our survival. This time there is no other motive than Israel’s existence.”

Perhaps when that stage is reached will peaceableness toward enemies become a practical idea.

I leave you with the final scene from “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

The Finch family, and residents of sleepy Maycomb County, Alabama, have gone through a traumatic event. Irrepressible Scout is narrating her view of the event to her father. She is particularly wonder-struck by the dissolution of a stereotype.

“They all thought it was Stoner’s Boy messin’ up their clubhouse an’ throwin’ ink all over it an’ they chased him ‘n’ never could catch him ‘cause they didn’t know what he looked like, an’ Atticus, when they finally saw him, why he hadn’t done any of those things …. Atticus, he was real nice …”

His hands were under my chin, pulling up the cover, tucking it around me.

“Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.”

Charity of the Heart

“I believe that with great wealth comes great responsibility.”

So said Bill Gates on June 15 as he announced plans to phase himself out of Microsoft by 2008 to focus full-time on philanthropy and tackle the vast challenges of child mortality and disease control throughout the world.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, founded in 2000 and with assets valued at $30 billion, has already made its mark financing projects to eradicate deadly diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, diarrhea and AIDS in Asia and Africa.

From Bangladesh to Botswana, the Gateses have funded programs driven by cutting-edge science to develop, test, and manufacture drugs and vaccines for diseases that kill millions of children every year.

One good thing begets another. In this case, did it ever!

Investment guru Warren Buffett, the second-richest man on the planet and a close friend of Numero Uno Bill Gates, pledged $30 billion dollars to the Gates Foundation, overnight doubling its assets to $60 billion dollars.

That’s the kind of cash that can transform the world. Yet the history of philanthropy is littered with huge endowments gone horribly awry. Why should this be different?

Two words: Bill and Melinda.

The couple has turned traditional philanthropy on its head by marrying charity to accountability, management, rigor, research and result. The traits that allowed Gates to build Microsoft into what it is today are also qualities that animate the foundation: curiosity, attention to details, business savvy and a desire to confront the most intractable problems head-on.

But reducing social inequities and improving lives around the world are not the same as solving engineering and mathematical problems, however complex.

Still, applying scientific rigor on unwieldy issues of global health and universal education can only lead to more insights, as various projects that the Foundation has undertaken in the direst regions of Africa show. And more insights often mean a greater chance of success in these thorny human issues, even if the initial approaches fail.

Gates modeled his philanthropic philosophy after a mathematician. In the year 1900, the great German mathematician David Hilbert outlined 23 major mathematical problems that he believed would dictate research in the field in the twentieth century. (About half of these problems are still unsolved.) Taking a cue from Hilbert, Gates challenged scientists, physicians and health-care professionals in 2003 from around the world to draw up a list of grand challenges in global health.

After intense research and debate, investigators produced a list of 14 “global challenges” in seven categories: improve childhood vaccines (3), create new vaccines (3), control insects that transmit agents of disease (2), improve nutrition to promote health (1), improve drug treatment of infectious diseases (1), cure latent and chronic infections (2), and measure disease and health status accurately and economically in developing countries (2).

It is this laser-sharp focus on priorities that persuaded Warren Buffett to entrust his wealth to Bill and Melinda Gates, instead of creating his own foundation.

There are many high-profile personalities who by example are ushering in a golden and dynamic era of philanthropy. The actress Angeline Jolie, for example, donates one-third of her income to charitable causes in the poorest nations of the earth. As a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. Refugee Agency, she has traveled to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Rwanda, and Ethiopia to stir the world’s conscience about the plight of the hungry, the vulnerable and the homeless.

But what about the rest of us, neither famous nor millionaires? Is there anything we can do to touch lives less fortunate than ours?

I will take Bangladesh as an example, my birthplace. There are millions of Bangladeshis, including many of us living abroad, who are doing precisely that: sponsoring a child, pooling resources to build schools and hospitals, donating books to libraries, buying textbooks for orphans, creating scholarships for poor but meritorious students. The means of charity are endless, tangible and intangible. What counts is that we make the extra effort to do the best we can, to lift a burden here and bring a smile there, to forgive a debt, to give hope to a beaten spirit, to …

Fill in the blanks and just do it. No charity is too small and no giving from the heart leads to poverty.

The tragedy is that millions of us are also materialists and narcissists who have no margin in our lives for others, who remain adamantly blind to the inequity around us. This, in spite of Zakat being a pillar of our faith! It is never too late to change.

In a visit to Bangladesh last December, Bill Gates described his meeting with seamstresses and other women entrepreneurs in a village on the outskirts of Dhaka as “a religious experience.” He was particularly impressed by how micro-credit, pioneered by economist Dr. Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen (Village-based) Bank, and promoted by Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) and similar organizations around the world, is transforming the lives of women. This first-hand observation undoubtedly played a pivotal role in his recent decision to make micro-credit a salient feature of his foundation.

Perhaps one of the greatest gifts of the new era of philanthropy we are now witnessing will be to curb all types of extremism. When people are freed from the ancient curses of ill-health, poverty, ignorance and debt, and their children survive to lead productive lives, the world will become a better place for all.

Currently, Bangladesh seems to be in the grips of a particularly venal form of religious extremism in which a minority of zealots are persecuting Ahmadiyyas. To these zealots we say: It is up to God, and God alone, to decide who is a Muslim and who is not. You commit the gravest of sins if you attempt to usurp the right that is uniquely God’s. Back off. Use your energy to do good to your fellow humans. Do it out of the charity of your heart, even if you cannot do it in the name of God.

Islam in the Polls

Americans know more about Islam than ever before - and they don't like what they see.

A new CBS News poll conducted in early April suggests that 45 percent of Americans hold negative views of Islam, compared to 33 percent in the tense aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. A Washington Post-ABC News poll in March that also showed a growing number of Americans (46 percent) expressing unfavorable opinions of Islam.

The situation has become so bleak that Muslim religious leaders sought the help of a Nobel Laureate to stem this rising tide of negativity. The Dalai Lama, 71, led leaders from Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Native American traditions at "A Gathering of Hearts Illuminating Compassion" conference in San Francisco recently. The leaders appealed to Americans not to equate Islam with terrorism.

What makes these polls so scary for Muslims is that the queried Americans confirmed that they were better informed about Islam now than they were five years ago.

In other words, despite all the mosque open houses, outreach and interfaith programs, books and articles on Islam, the idea that increased knowledge will lead to greater tolerance toward Islam and Muslims has become more eluive than ever.

Is there a contradiction here?

Not really, if one thinks about it.

Consider the situation from the point of view of an average American.

During the week of April 10-16 (a remarkable convergence of Passover, Easter and the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday), the average American learned that Zacarias Moussaoui, the al-Qaida terrorist, had “no regrets, no remorse” for the nearly 3,000 people killed on September 11, 2001.

There is the consistent horror of Sunnis and Shias dismembering each other in Iraq and Pakistan, always when the gathering is large, as during the Friday congregational prayers.

There is also the daily genocide that the Muslim Janjaweed militia wages against the indigenous tribes of Darfur, Sudan, most of whom are also Muslims but of darker skins.

Yes, most Muslims are as outraged by these horrors as the average American in question. But isn’t it too much to expect that he will continue to be reassured by our words (the fanatics are not of us and we are not of them, and besides, every faith has its fanatics) while the horrific deeds continue unabated?

He sees what Muslims are doing to Muslims, how some of them are spewing murderous hatred for the West, and while he may hold his own country responsible for the catastrophe in Iraq, it does not diminish his growing conviction that Muslims are disproportionately prone to violence. Talk of peace and harmony can go only so far; he is more persuaded by the grim reality on the ground.

In the same week, however, quiet (and recurring) events of different sorts were taking place throughout America, far removed from the gaze of the mainstream media.

In a crime-infested neighborhood in East Oakland, Calif., for example, two Muslims stand at a street corner, giving out free popcorn and cotton candy to passersby. Their only goal is to spread some cheer and hope to their down-trodden neighbors. With help from their activist friends from the nearby mosque called Masjid Al-Islam, they host year-round soup kitchens for the poor and the hungry.

We also learn that Habibe Husain, founder of Rahima Foundation (http://www.rahima.org/), has received the Human Relations award of California’s Santa Clara County. Her organization has been helping the less fortunate residents of Silicon Valley and adjoining areas since 1993.

In cities such as Sacramento, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Tampa Bay and Atlanta, local Muslim doctors provide poor and uninsured residents with free medical care. And through organizations like Habitat for Humanity, Muslims also volunteer their time and skills to build homes for the homeless.

Is our average American aware of these “events?” Perhaps not. There is no requirement that he should be, unless he is a beneficiary himself. After all, we Muslims providing humanitarian services are doing so not to enhance our standing in the polls, but as a religious calling to help the less fortunate.

But these acts do teach us an important lesson. While it is undeniable that there is a need to educate Americans about Islam and Muslims, perhaps our efforts will go further if more of us engaged in deeds rather than words.

Most of our mosques have traditionally been heavy on seminars and conferences but after several years, these often turn into a case of preaching to the converted.

Just as a picture is worth a thousand words, an act of charity is worth a thousand sermons. So here’s a humble suggestion to my fellow American Muslims: Let’s cut down on the number of seminars and conferences at our local mosques by about half and replace them with charitable acts that affect the homeless, the needy and the destitute around us. That will require more effort than writing a check or listening to an Imam expound on the same tired topic. But in the end, it will make us better Muslims.

Perhaps it will even improve our standing in the eyes of our fellow Americans.

The Case of the Afghan Apostate

Islamic Pluralism 1, Religious Dogmatism 0.

This is how I greeted the news that Abdur Rahman has been spared execution and freed by an Afghan court. He is the Afghan who converted to Christianity from Islam 16 years ago. When his apostasy came to light last week after a family squabble, a prosecutor threatened to execute him as mandated by what he claimed to be Afghanistan’s Sharia law.

Many Muslim media carried compelling articles about the illegality and immorality of apostasy-killing as the hapless Rahman’s impending fate filtered out of Afghanistan. The most powerful indictment comes, of course, from the Quran: There can be no coercion in matters of faith (2:256).

By citing a weak and dubious hadith, one that goes against the message of love and compassion that Prophet Muhammad preached and practiced throughout his life, a handful of Afghanistan’s frozen-in-time, pre-Taliban clerics sought to impose the death penalty on Rahman.
But worldwide outrage and a fledgling democracy’s resolve under President Hamid Karzai to do the right thing forced the clerics to retreat.

While Rahman’s travails remind us that we still have ways to go before the interpretation of Islam is loosened from the grips of dogmatists, we can also take some satisfaction from the progress that has been made.

Consider what would have happened to Rahman if the Taliban were still in power. Remember the harrowing video - widely distributed after the 9/11 attacks - of the woman who was publicly executed in a soccer stadium in Kabul, “cowering beneath a pale blue all-enveloping burqa?” Can anyone doubt that Rahman would not have met the same fate, given the Taliban’s record in these matters, particularly the record of its "Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice”?

Implementing Sharia, as the Taliban defined it, became synonymous with beatings and killings. Is it any wonder that anytime patriarchal clerics talk of implementing Sharia, it sends shivers down the spines of Muslims in the affected areas, particularly of Muslim women?

Consider also the question of stoning to death (unmarried) people accused of adultery, again based on a weak hadith. Remember the case of the Nigerian woman Amina Lawal, charged with conceiving a child while single? A Nigerian Sharia court declared in 2002 that for her crime of adultery, she was to be stoned to death. (The court couldn’t be bothered about the man who was her “partner in crime.” He was nowhere to be found in the Katsina district in Northern Nigeria where the Sharia court held sway and was also absent from any theological discussion!)

The Quran mentions stoning five times - 11:91, 18:20, 19:46, 26:116 and 36:18 - but it is directed against prophets Shuaib, People of the Cave, Prophet Ibrahim, Prophet Noah, and Companions of the City, respectively. When these prophets and the righteous servants of God began preaching monotheism, people used to polytheism threatened them with stoning. That is as far as the Quran goes.

International outrage across religious boundaries forced the Nigerian court to spare Lawal’s life in 2003.

Hopefully, killing for apostasy and stoning to death (only women need apply) for adultery will soon be a thing of the past as absolutist clerics realize that their hold over Muslim minds and hearts is rapidly dissipating. In the Age of the Internet, ideas travel with the speed of light and millions of Muslims are taking advantage of it to deepen their understanding of Islam and mobilize support for progressive and humane causes. Many new avenues of thought are opening up. One example is the complex nature of the relationship between mosque and state, as opposed to the reflexive and traditional view that the two must be conflated in Islam. Even in conservative societies, Muslims are beginning to recognize that faith is a matter of personal responsibility and not a consequence of authoritarian decree. The days of any religious leader thundering “I am right, you are dead” will soon, let us pray, be over once and for all.

Mar. 11, '06

Bangladesh Cracks Down on Militant Extremists

Moderate Muslims around the world, along with their supporters and well-wishers, should be inspired by the recent happenings in Bangladesh. Leaders of two banned militant Islamic organizations, responsible for unleashing death and destruction on an unsuspecting population, were finally cornered in their hideouts earlier this month by law enforcement officials known as Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and taken into custody.

As Abdur Rahman and Siddiqul Islam, respective chiefs of Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), await their fate, Bangladeshis are rejoicing. But there is also anger at the havoc these terrorists have wrought and the bad name they have given to a peaceful and progressive society.

On August 17 of last year, for instance, the two organizations were responsible for the synchronized explosion of over 400 crude bombs throughout Bangladesh, killing two and injuring more than 120. More bombings, grenade assassinations and suicide bombings (an unfortunate first for Bangladesh) followed in December, leading to more deaths and injuries and creating a sense of terror throughout the Wisconsin-sized country.
What motivated the terrorists? In the words of their leaders: “To establish Islamic law. It’s a pity that in Bangladesh, where about 90 percent are Muslims, Allah’s rules are not implemented.”

But Bangladeshis realized that their version of Islamic law was nothing but a hodgepodge of misogyny, violence, thirst for power and distorted interpretations of the Quran and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. They rejected their call for a Taliban-style medieval theocracy and wished fervently for the government of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia to bring the radicals to justice. The arrests couldn’t have come sooner.
The young and vulnerable Bangladeshis who were lured into joining JMB and JMJB and engaged in bombings and other acts of random violence have destroyed not only their own lives but also the lives of their dependents. These victims are now speaking out. And they are not mincing words.

Hurrennesa Baby, 16, is the daughter of Nasir Uddin, a JMB member who blasted bombs and killed people last year and now sits in a jail. “Like many others, our family has been ruined as my father was the lone earning member,” she said. “My family is virtually starving. Our friends and relatives have deserted us. They (the militant kingpins) should be hanged in public.” Omar Ali, 65, is the father of detained JMB member Anisur Rahman. “I would like to see the two militant extremists executed as they ruined my family by misguiding my son into exploding bombs on August 17.”

Similar sentiments are being echoed throughout the country.

The events in Bangladesh are a reminder that moderate Muslim nations are working hard to root out extremists who wear the cloak of religiosity but whose goal is to spread anarchy and mayhem in the name of Islam. This message is sometimes lost on some in the West who tend to paint Muslims and Islamic nations in broad brush strokes and pin the “terrorist” label on all because of the actions of a few. A poll released this month by Washington Post and ABC News found that 46 percent of Americans have a negative view of Islam “fueled in part by political statements and media reports that focus almost solely on the actions of Muslim extremists.” The latest Dubai fiasco only underscores this issue. Congress voted 62 to 2 to kill a deal that would have given Dubai Ports World the rights to operate six U.S. ports. United Arab Emirates (UAE) - Dubai is one of its seven emirates - has proven to be one of the staunchest allies of America in its war against terror and fundamentalism. Dubai services more U.S. military ship than any other foreign country. Yet the idea of linking Dubai to U.S. ports caused a huge uproar throughout America. The sentiment behind the uproar can be summarized as follows: “Arabs are coming. The sky is falling. We are about to be terrorized!” How can America ever hope to win friends in the Middle East, far less “spread democracy”, if it stereotypes all Arabs as suspects?

As an American Muslim of Bangladeshi origin, I draw an important lesson from the recent events in the country of my birth: the importance of Ijtihad in the practice of Islam. Ijtihad means informed independent thinking about theological issues, particularly in the context of the times. Many Muslims are sometimes content to practice Islam based on derivative knowledge, blindly following this sheik or that imam. It is important that we think about Islamic issues ourselves first and then seek opinions and guidance from religious leaders. That way, at the very least, we can engage in enlightened debates with them, thereby practicing a religion more resonant with our reasoning and intuition. Imam Reda Shata of the Bay Ridge mosque in New York explained it this way to his congregants: “Islam is a religion based on intellect. Islam says to you: ‘Think. Don’t close your eyes and just follow your emotions. Don’t follow the sheik. Perhaps you have a better mind than his.’ ”

Bangladeshi authorities are now interrogating the two terrorist leaders to find out who financed their organizations, where their members received training and how arms and ammunitions were smuggled into the country. Although the country has its share of problems - bribery, nepotism, red tape, financial shenanigans by the wealthy and the privileged, to name a few - Bangladeshis (population: 145 million) are solidly behind this effort, even though there is quibbling about whether or not the government could have taken such decisive actions months ago. But it is better late than never. Law enforcement officials are confident that Bangladesh will soon be free from the scourge of terrorism waged in the name of Islam.