13 Comments

1. 

   Amin

   April 3, 2017 at 1:55 PM

   Well written article, however, I would like to make a few comments.

   While this article mentions how to be principled in seeking social justice, it would also be principled to make it clear on “What not to do when seeking social justice”. Many muslim activists out there have collaborated with many groups that oppose many principles of Islam. We need to understand that fighting for social justice as Muslims is a means to an end, not an end in itself! We are seeking God’s acceptance.

   It was nice that there was a discussion with scholars, however, these discussions need to be available to public. Activists and scholars need to discuss things publicly for other muslims to understand and learn because many youngsters out there DO follow activists blindly in the name of “Fighting for social justice”, without understanding what is right and wrong.

   I might sound a little passive but I think our community needs to invest more teaching in “avoiding wrong” because we have broken many boundaries of Islam in the name of being “activists”.

   These are important points because activists are currently considered the prominent representers of Islam, more than scholars even. Whether they chose so or not, that is what non-muslims see in social media and media in general.

   May Allah accept all our deeds and grant us Jannah.

   Wa Salam

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   • 

     Kyle Ismail

     April 3, 2017 at 2:58 PM

     Brilliant job and very well thought out. Some details could be added or changed but generally something that Muslims could be proud to stand on. Perhaps you’ll address this in your third installment, but one thing that Muslims could uniquely bring to public discourse is how activists can invest in themselves to care for themselves and those around them and preserve good character and longevity in the struggle. Jazaks

     Reply
2. 

   Margari Hill

   April 3, 2017 at 2:45 PM

   Salam Alaikum Amin,

   I respectfully disagree. There has been plenty of articles written on this platform on what we shouldn’t be doing. Can you think of one thing that folks SHOULD be doing? And if folks are inclined to create more forums and write more articles about what we shouldn’t be doing, let them do that. I gotta keep it moving.

   Also, what principles are we against? Do we not work with Christians to feed the hungry and provide for orphans because theologically the Trinity violates towhead? Do we not work to end violence against women with an atheist group because they reject Allah? Do we not work with someone to end gang violence because they imbibe in alcohol and eat chicharrones? For those of us who are trying to be part of the solution, these online musings make it difficult to operate.

   There seems to be conflation of media representation and social media and real work that has impact in local communities. And we know that media is all smoke and mirrors and entertainment. Let’s get to work in our communities and make a difference. And scholars, intellectuals, organizers, and social workers let’s move this conversation forward to real action.

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   • 

     Amin

     April 3, 2017 at 3:53 PM

     We Alekom Alsalam,

     JAK for your reply.
     I apologize for not making it clear. When I said collaborating with other parties that we don’t agree with, I was referring specifically to joining movements that might have un-islamic causes. I agree with collaborating for good purposes, as long as Islamic principles are maintained. I agree in working for good causes of course. I am involved in community work myself.

     My whole point is, it is tricky working in the scope of social justice nowadays, just for the fact that it encompasses now more than just helping those in need. There is fitna in everything that might sound good. That is why I mentioned scholars and social justice activists need to have a public discussion; Just for the sake of understanding what can go wrong while being involved in this sort of work and how to interact with things that might be challenging. Many scholars have wrote on it online, but I think a face-to-face public discussion is warranted.

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     • 

       Margari Hill

       April 3, 2017 at 7:47 PM

       I live in a world that bridges both worlds, as my husband is an imam and we regularly talk with scholars and community leaders. Following the death of Muhammad Ali, I was on some national calls where prominent scholars called for a principled policy platform. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened. Instead, we still are reactionary in our policy making. I’m inviting those scholars to take the lead in this work. The attempt is to be proactive, rather than focus on what goes wrong. That of course should be teased out. As a convener of difficult discussions, Really, we are lacking in creative visioning for our community. I invite you to vision what does freedom look like. What are the values, if lived out, would bring about the life we are intended to live?

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3. 

   Ahmad B.

   April 3, 2017 at 5:17 PM

   Assalamu ‘alaikum,

   Thank you, sister, for this thoughtful article. I think it is a good sign that scholars and activists are working together to try to forge a platform and a language for us to strive for justice as Muslims in current society. I believe that this is an ongoing process that will take some time to get just right. I think it is important for all sides to be patient with each other and open to hearing others’ perspectives. This goes for scholars, but also for some of the activists, who sometimes seem to have a knee-jerk reaction to anything religious value or principle that goes against a particular leftist/liberal narrative. This in itself is perhaps partly a result of the fact that we have yet to forge a compelling, independent justice narrative of our own, which leaves social justice activists not much of a choice at the current time. This only increases, in my mind, the urgency of the need for us to develop a principled voice that takes Islamic values seriously. Such values often coincide with what typical SJWs fight for in today’s society, but sometimes conflict with it as well.

   Of course we wouldn’t refuse to work with a Christian or even atheist group *for the purpose of* fighting hunger, since their beliefs have no bearing on the action at hand. Their theological dispute with Muslims is a separate issue, while we all happen to converge on the need to fight hunger.

   But as far as potential conflicts, let’s stop beating around the bush. Everyone knows the elephant in the room that we’ve all come to tiptoe around: namely, groups that push radical ideologies and policies with regard to issues surrounding gender, sexuality, family, and related issues. We may work *alongside* an LGBT or a feminist group to fight poverty or racial injustice, but that does not authorize us to violate Islamic principles in fighting *for* any aspect of their own agenda that conflicts with Islamic values. Unfortunately, this happens to be a great deal of the LGBT agenda–like the radical redefinition of family, the separation of sex from reproduction, natural parenting and lineage from family, and a host of other things which directly undermine the overall goals and values of Islam, encapsulated in the maqasid al-shari’a. You quoted in your article verses in which Allah exhorts us to “call to the good and forbid the evil” and to call to uprightness, ihsan, etc. We have no choice but to understand and define these terms according to revelation, not according to the opinions and beliefs of current liberal-leaning or secular groups in our society.

   The principles you quote judiciously avoid including “LGBT equality” and other such loaded rhetoric, and also speak in general terms about “women’s rights” without, for example, tying this to a specifically pro-choice stance (which is again problematic from an Islamic moral and ethical viewpoint). At least one person whom you mention by name, however, has taken a public stance against pro-life groups and identified “justice,” generically understood, as entailing alignment with “pro-choice” movements.

   This is very problematic from an Islamic point of view, and we need to have a discussion about that, and learn to forge a narrative on justice that allows us to throw our weight with full force behind truly just causes (Islamically understood), without seeming hypocritical when we withhold support from causes that violate Islamic principles. Unless we are successful in plunging the depths of our tradition to articulate the real categories and language in terms of which we should conceive of and speak about justice (al-‘adl) as Muslims, it will be very difficult to avoid exchanging our worldview and principles for another not of our own making that comes from sources that are antithetical to religion. Many other religious denominations have fallen into this trap, and we must learn from their mistakes so that the same doesn’t happen to us (though the Prophet, saas, did say that never would the previous communities–Christians and Jews–go down a lizard hole except that some among his umma would follow them right down it).

   Wallahu waliyyu t-tawfiq.

   Wassalam,
   Ahmad B.

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   • 

     Margari Hill

     April 3, 2017 at 7:40 PM

     Thank you for your input Ahmad, unfortunately the comments have reified the view that the we’re more concerned with proscribing sexuality and reproduction rather than articulating what does social justice look like. Let us take the issue around Pro-Choice. I named a number of people and I’m not aware of any of their positions around reproductive health. Omar Suleiman wrote a nuanced article on debates around abortion, “Is Islam pro-life, pro-choice, or both depending on the circumstances? And what implications does the answer to this question have for current political discourse? This essay seeks to offer a comprehensive look at how classical and contemporary Muslim jurists have dealt with the subject in accordance with evolving methods, circumstances, and debates surrounding the topics of contraception and abortion. https://yaqeeninstitute.org/omar-suleiman/islam-and-the-abortion-debate/
     I’d love to see more nuanced discussions like this.

     It is still important to articulate what are women’s rights to reproductive health, what are rights over her body as inalienable rights? Depending on what school of law, what can a woman do? Do we shut down funding to organizations that provide services to poor women? Do we use Maslaha in determining to not defund service providers that may provide abortion services? What is our ethical responsibility?

     Ultimately, I do not like certain frameworks such as conservative or progressive, pro choice or pro life, or the crass pragmatism of aligning with a movement that doesn’t speak to our faith values. But also, what happens when we are afraid to discuss and discuss what social justice looks like, one that is faithfully rooted and speaks to realities of our families, neighbors, communities?

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     • 

       Ahmad B.

       April 3, 2017 at 8:46 PM

       Assalamu ‘alaikum Sr. Margari,

       Thank you for your considered response. I agree wholeheartedly that we should not use labels like “liberal,” “conservative,” “right,” “left,” etc. to describe ourselves or Islam, as these labels all have specific, yet constantly changing, meanings that the deen should not be boxed into.

       I appreciate the nuance of the article you cite on abortion. If you read carefully, however, it is clear that the overwhelming position of our scholars, while not as categorical in its absolute opposition to all abortion as the current Catholic church, have nevertheless come down far to the “right” on this issue than those who typically consider themselves “pro-choice” in today’s society. There’s no question it’s murder after 120 days, but even *prior to* 40 days, the most liberal views only allow it for very pressing reasons, from which is *explicitly excluded* the fear of poverty or not being able to provide for the child. The article mentions physical or mental inability to raise the child. Does that mean clinical insanity and actual physical incapacity, or something lesser? The article doesn’t say, so further research would be needed. Between 40 and 120 days, the article mentions as the only possible excuses rape or “extreme fetal deformity incompatible with life.”

       I searched for statistics regarding the reasons women in the U.S. give for obtaining abortions. Here is what I found:

       “This report reviews available statistics regarding reasons given for obtaining abortions in the United States, including surveys by the Alan Guttmacher Institute and data from seven state health/statistics agencies that report relevant statistics (Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Utah). The official data imply that AGI claims regarding “hard case” abortions are inflated by roughly a factor of three. Actual percentage of U.S. abortions in “hard cases” are estimated as follows: in cases of rape, 0.3%; in cases of incest, 0.03%; in cases of risk to maternal life, 0.1%; in cases of risk to maternal health, 0.8%; and in cases of fetal health issues, 0.5%. About 98.3% of abortions in the United States are elective, including socio-economic reasons or for birth control. This includes perhaps 30% for primarily economic reasons and possibly 0.1% each for sex selection and selective reduction of multifetal pregnancies.”

       If these statistics are even anywhere near accurate, it is clear that the Islamically justified abortions (if they were carried out prior to 40 days or between 40-120 days, respectively) constitute a tiny fraction of all abortions performed in the United States. Rape, maternal health, maternal life, and fetal life *together* amount to only 1.7% (!) of the cases. The remaining 98.3% are for reasons that even the most “lenient” scholars in our tradition would have considered illegitimate, meaning that almost all of the actual abortions performed in the United States constitute prohibited feticide from an Islamic perspective.

       The Omar Suleiman article mentions that “only 3%” of Planned Parenthood’s services in 2009 were “terminations” (a euphemism) and that PP performed “only” 332,000 (!) abortions in that one year. If the statistics available are accurate, then even if we assume the *best case* scenario (i.e., assuming that the small number of legitimate abortions performed actually fell within the 40- and 120-day time limits), that still leaves 326,356 instances of *illegitimate* (i.e., morally impermissible) pregnancy terminations (with a mere 5,644–1.7%–being Islamically legitimate, *in the best case scenario*).

       So as long as we can agree that the quasi-totality of abortions that occur in this country are, in fact, forbidden by Allah and constitute the unjustified taking of a developing human life, then we can have a conversation about the remaining 1.7%. Being “pro-life” in the current political atmosphere, however, has nothing to do with protecting the 1.7% of legitimate abortions, but protecting the “right” to the other 98%, which we consider to be illegitimate and immoral.

       What does this mean for our public posture on the issue? Well, if we take a posture that actually aligns with our values, principles, and God-given morals, we would certainly have to stand against laws that allow abortions that are morally illegitimate in a whopping 98% of the cases. If we say, “This is not our issue. Lakum dinukum wa liya din,” then perhaps we wouldn’t put anti-abortion activism on the top of our list of moral crusades, but I still would find actual *support* of abortion, as well as open alignment with pro-abortion groups–particularly for the explicit *purpose* of preserving and expanding current liberal abortion laws–very difficult to reconcile with Islam and, by extension, what our position should be as a community if we are actually guided by our Islamic values. Wallahu a’lam.

       In any case, I do appreciate the discussion and agree that we need to have conversations like this much more frequently and much more openly.

       Wassalam,
       Ahmad B.

       Reply
       • 

         Margari Hill

         April 3, 2017 at 9:08 PM

         Salam alaikum Ahmad,
         While I appreciate your sentiment, something about 722 words writing mostly about prohibition of abortion, rather than engaging in the central argument of my article which was 1839 words in total and just over 1000 of my own writing. I ask for “We must be part of the remedy to our society’s most enduring problems and we can find it in our collective visioning. I invite others to join in this important conversation and become part of the solution.” Only one paragraph was in a creative exercise of what are women’s rights. I’d like to see more engagement in a deeper level. Critiquing is finding the merits and weaknesses of an argument. It can also be building off of it and providing an alternative platform. I invite you to that.

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4. 

   Amin

   April 3, 2017 at 9:17 PM

   JAK sister. Br. Ahmed actually explained what I was trying to say. The discussion I think that should take place is specifically for these issues that the brother mentioned. I am glad that you mentioned that it is wrong to be pragmatic.

   Social justice, as I was trying to say earlier is not only about helping our communities, it became a wider scope, it is more about marching for reproductive rights, ect. It’s funny we talk about helping others, but in fact, social justice now is more about how to become selfish and protest for personal benefits. This is really the reality of social justice nowadays. So, indeed, we need to actually establish what social justice means for muslims and what exactly are our objectives to attain it. I think many muslims agree that we need to engage in the community to bring about positive change and to help people. However, the sad reality is: Muslims are going through a hard time spiritually, even more with the current climate. Islamic education is extremely important nowadays to understand where to draw the lines, when to collaborate and when to not.

   The issue does not lie only in stances like reproductive health and sexuality. These might be the only issues visible to us, but these stances come from a completely liberal point of view, and liberalism clashes with Islam in its core foundations. There was a new study done that indicated that muslim youth are the most politically liberal community in USA. The endorsement of liberalism has major ramifications for your deen. Unfortunately, when talking about a bigger scale of social justice organizations, politics plays a major role.

   So my personal suggestions would be:

   1-Avoid affiliating with any political parties, and create our own political stance. Being independent will allow us to have the freedom to express what our religion is about, and will make our intentions pure when helping our communities.

   2-Creating a sustainable link between Islamic organizations and social justice work. That would help create a dialogue between activists and Imams, and also will be a motive in making our work prophetic and principled.

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   • 

     Margari Hill

     April 3, 2017 at 10:30 PM

     While important, I wasn’t the one who centered sexuality and reproductive health. But that has been the crux of the issue that you and Ahmad brought up.

     If you re-read the statement it says that we do not based on political party. There were religious scholars who contributed to the platform. I reached out to many more, but few responded to the call to contribute to this phase of the discussion. I invite Muslims scholars to be more engaged with MuslimARC and any of the organizing spaces I’m part of, as our pedagogy is articulated from Islamic principles. It draws on my research on Islamic education, as well as critical pedagogy. I invite Muslim leaders to enter in Faith Based Organizing spaces and be part of important conversations. I understand that folks are busy, but I’ve been in spaces where I am the only one fighting for them. So, I need for folks to be more open and enter a partnership, as this has been extremely hard.

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5. 

   Ahmad B.

   April 5, 2017 at 2:15 PM

   Assalamu ‘alaikum Sister,

   I appreciate your patient and graceful responses. I did not mean to boil questions of social justice down to sexual morality, but only to show where disagreements and misalignments are likely to come up, especially in social justice spaces dominated by left-wing / liberal groups (since you had asked that one brother).

   Having said that, I think a great deal of what such people are striving for is fully compatible with Islamic values, and we should be at the forefront of such efforts, since Allah has commanded us to establish justice and ihsan. The Prophet (saas) was known to have stood for just causes even before revelation, which means we should follow suit.

   However, the Prophet’s (saas) actual mission went far beyond social justice or “reform” in a normal sense, and was based first and foremost on the religious goal of guiding people to the worship of and submission to Allah alone, for the sake of their individual salvation in the akhira. Social justice is a core Islamic value, but Islam cannot be reduced to it. We should ideally avoid conceptualizing of Islam as *nothing but* a call to social justice or speaking of it in those terms.

   The statement you quoted in your piece does a nice job of laying out a social justice platform for Muslims without crossing the line into un-Islamic territory. I think we should throw our collective efforts behind justice causes, excluding much of the sexuality and gender platform of the Left. For this to be viable, however, we have to have a coherent internal discourse around our own positive values regarding, e.g., sexuality, gender, family, etc., so that it is clear to our own community, as well as to others, that we are not primarily *against* x, y, or z, but primarily *for* a, b, and c, which are the true values that Allah has given us and that we are calling people towards (an ethics of chastity, for example, importance of the family, etc.). Of course, we have to actually live and embody these values, otherwise it’s just empty talk or, worse, hypocrisy.

   May Allah give you tawfiq in your work!

   Wassalam,
   Ahmad B.

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6. 

   Wesam

   April 30, 2017 at 12:33 PM

   At AERA with Dr. Indigo Esmonde standing in solidarity with Muslim coleagues. Seven-minute silence during her presentation.
   Thank you!

   Reply