Some Thoughts on Building a Better Community

Some Thoughts on Building a Better Community


Dear community members! First a “word from our sponsor!” Please come to our fundraiser at Sagar Restaurant this Sunday! We Muslims need to help each other! This fundraiser for local services will strengthen our capacity to help those most in crisis! If you are not there, we will miss you.

At the same time many Muslims are isolated from decision-making and influence in the larger society in which we live. This is certainly true about decisions in Washington. However, it is also true locally. We can protest, for example with the vast coalition United for Peace and Justice on March 19th. Or, we can get involved with horse-trading basic local politics. We can visit elected officials, most effectively in coalitions, and then report the results to the larger community. Politics is not always beautiful but it is practical. It gets things done. And if we keep our eyes open, we will be able to bring our Islamic qualities into action in the community.

Every community has its community board that makes a range of local decisions. Their meetings are listed in the local free papers. Local Councilmen and women can also refer you. However, elected officials tell us that Muslims do not attend Community Board meetings. Indeed, in many communities the same people have been running these meetings for 20 years, even they are open to public participation! But these little Italian ladies will not last forever! Muslims with good social skills and the ability to schmooze are clearly needed. Similarly, police officials tell us that we do not show up to the Police Council meetings. So I ask you-- are there delegations (male or female) from each mosque attending Community board meetings? Who has time, you ask, to attend these meetings each month, or join weekly committees? But representation is important. Why not coordinate with other mosques in your area to share the responsibility to attend? I hope Muslims can do this! We have so much to offer— don’t you agree?

However, I often think that we have an Islamic Leadership mostly content to attend meetings and provide an appearance of leadership. To be fair to them, we can ask the people-- do the leaders get enough support, do they get enough resources, to actually coordinate and build up this community?? Are the intellectuals and professionals too alienated to lend their valuable skills? And we see that the majority of Muslims do not attend prayers on a regular basis. They need to know the door is always open to them. There needs to be an effort to reach them with kindness and high quality moral persuasion. And maybe more of us should serve lunch to all after the Juma prayers, following the example at such mosques as Fatih Camii and al Khoei Islamic Center. Should generosity be limited to Ramadan?

In contrast, last week there were death threats to Muslim Feminists here in New York. It is true that well-meaning (as well as hostile) mainstream Americans see this feminism as a needed “reform of Islam.” We can warn our sisters and brothers of the dangers of being co-opted by the American mainstream, to be aware of the costs and the hidden agendas. But no one is forcing us to pray behind a female imam. Why not tolerate the debate about the ritual and gender equality? What is so frightening about Nomani and other activist sisters? How is it Islamic to make death threats?

I don’t know why it’s Islamic to want nuclear weapons proliferation either. Religious nationalism is a sort of tribal solidarity that can mislead us. Let us stay out of the Faustian bargains with Shaitan. Let us also stay away from the religious hypocrisy of the religious right, both in the US and abroad. They may be religious, but their leadership is moral the way an Israeli bulldozer is moral. The US Right is Christian the way Don Corleone is Christian. The Religious Right is very often wrong. But the Left has often been distracted by the demands of identity politics, and challenges the corruption of power and technology without a clear ability to transform the situation. There will always be Muslims leaning to different political sides, but insha’Allah we will maintain our mutual trust as well as our honesty and our life-giving faith in Allah.

The media has also strayed, but it is indispensable. Some journalists will even tell us the bad news, if we are willing to hear it. On Sunday, the New York Times told us that the US occupation allowed the looting of ammunition stocks throughout Iraq, not only feeding the Iraqi resistance but also that, “some of the looted machinery included high-precision equipment capable of making parts for nuclear arms.” Americans are concerned about “Islamic Bombs” but will they accept the Bush Administration responsibility for nuclear proliferation, here and elsewhere?

As Muslims we can continue to open minds and hearts to the whole truth. For that we need to be engaged in the activities and politics of the society in which we live, and we have to be willing to volunteer our time to accomplish this important mission.

Springtime is a gift, a sign of His Mercy. The flowers begin to push up through the frozen earth, we begin to see a faint rumor of green in the distant trees, and we hear the voices of birds if we listen. But a better society is our work. It will not arrive without our struggle. We too must rise through the frozen earth of fear, apathy and distraction.