Yusuf al-Qaradawi is one of the most influential and controversial contemporary Sunni clerics.  He may have the distinction of being loathed equally by  the anti-Muslim right and the Islamic right, whether jihadi or non-jihadi. I recently have written two articles, one of which has been published, while the other is forthcoming, which deal with his views on the political rights of women and the theological fate of non-Muslims in the next life, respectively.  Here is a link to two of his fatwas that reflect his theological views on Muslim-non-Muslim relations (the substance of which I discuss in the book chapter on the fate of non-Muslims in the next life) and the other on secular relations between Muslims and Jews and Christians.  In this second fatwa, he reiterates the centrality of secular “justice” as being the touchstone that governs Muslim relations with Jews and Christians, going so far as to mock those Muslims who view the Arab-Israeli conflict as a kind of religious conflict over contradictory religious views.  At the same time, he insists on the inviolability of Palestinian rights as a matter of justice, and that, if the Jews wish to stake their claim to Palestine on religious grounds, then Muslims have the right to oppose them on Islamic grounds.  I hope to translate these two fatwas at some point in the future, but for now, I hope simply to make the Arabic versions of the two fatwas more widely available.

Last night, I gave a talk at the Hartford Seminary titled “Liberalism and Islam: Pitfalls and Potentials.”  The talk centered around two themes: how normative liberalism reacts to intolerant groups in its midst, and what are the religious obligations of liberal Muslim citizens in a liberal democracy generally, and the war on terror in particular.

Given my criticisms of US policy in the Middle East, the “War on Terror,” and its “lawfare” against US Muslims, one might reasonably question why I should remain a US citizen at all?  Indeed, I have sometimes asked myself “At what point would the limit be crossed?”  I guess the plain reason why I have never seriously contemplated renouncing US citizenship, and doubt that I ever would, is my deep conviction that substantial groups within US society share my deep opposition to these policies as well, and that the future belongs to us, not to those status quo forces that perpetuate atrocities in the name of the American people.  This otherwise disturbing article in Slate, which details the extent of the torture and international law-breaking practiced by the United States during the Bush Administration, crimes which the Obama administration foolishly chose to inter rather than investigate as the crimes that they were, strangely confirms my long-term view of the United States.  I hope my fellow American Muslim citizens, particularly the post-9/11 generation, understand that they have allies in the US; they should not think that all Americans are anti-Muslim paranoids; and that it is possible to work together with those Americans to bring a halt to these abuses, and the further entrenchment of the “creeping” surveillance and torture state.

Emad Mustaque has published an excellent analysis of the situation with Iran, and why it seems increasingly likely that a war in pursuit of regime change is inevitable in the medium-term, even if the risks of immediate war have declined substantially.

The Islamic Monthly, the best news magazine published by Muslims in North America, recently published my essay on religion and the Arab Spring. It is now available on the web.

Today’s Guardian has an article criticizing Mubarak-era agricultural policies.  The situation is more complicated than  the article suggests.  The article confuses two things which should remain separate: what kinds of crops Egypt should produce, and where they should produce them.  There is little reason to discourage substitution of higher value crops for lower value ones, but there are very good reasons to oppose Egypt’s land use policies under Mubarak, which encouraged inefficient reclamation and irrigation of the desert while it turned a blind eye to the illegal construction of housing on fertile Nile land, the best example being Giza.  When I was a kid, and I came to Egypt in the 70’s, the trip from the Nile to the Giza pyramids took one through incredibly fertile agricultural land.  Now, as everyone who has been to Cairo knows, it is a giant, urban sprawl.  That, in my opinion, is the real scandal.  Egypt was the 18th largest producer of wheat in the world in 2010, and its production had increased in 2010 by 25% relative to its wheat production in 1997. If we use its 2009 output, its highest year (8.5 million metric tons), increase in production since 1997 was an even more impressive 49% from 1997’s 5.7 million metric tons.  If we go back to 1981, when Mubarak assumed power, Egypt produced a mere 1.9 million metric tons of wheat.  So, as is much of the case with Mubarak’s legacy, it is more a case of incomplete and inefficient reform, combined with corruption, rather than complete failure.

We need you to call the White House and urge the President to veto the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012.  Time is of the essence,

as this bill has already passed the Senate and House and will be sent any day to the President for final approval.

The NDAA threatens all Americans’ civil rights and liberties by giving the government authority to indefinitely detain anyone, including US citizens, simply based on suspicion of engaging in terrorism.  Detainees under this provision will NOT be allowed access to a lawyer or a court of law.  This violates our constitutional rights, and we need your help in flooding the White House with your complaints.

Call the President now at 202-456-1111 and urge him to veto the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012.

Muslim Advocates, working in coalition with over 40 Muslim, Arab, and South Asian organizaitons and bar associations, called for  President Obama to veto the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The bill grossly undermines both our nation’s constitutional values and our security. The coalition letter requests that President Obama stand by his previous commitment to veto the NDAA.

Among the signatories to the letter are: Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS), Islamic Information Center, Islamic Society of North America, Islamic Leadership Council of Metropolitan NY, Islamic Society of Greater Houston, Somali Action Alliance, and South Asian Americans Leading Together. A full list of signatory organizations follows the letter.  A special thank you to the Muslim Bar Association of Chicago for their assistance in drafting the letter.

There is little doubt that religious commitments often conflict with political ones, at least in circumstances where religious commitments are considered to be transcendental, and at least some of them will ultimately be non-negotiable for their adherents. In Islam, the prohibition against intentionally killing other Muslims or waging war against them are examples of such commitments Muslims may have that can cause them to question the validity of certain political obligations.  This dilemma has become even more acute for American Muslims in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and the decision of the United States government to fight a global war on “terrorism” which goes well-beyond the immediate perpetrators of 9/11.  In these circumstances, and particularly because many Muslims feel obligations of solidarity with other Muslims they are under attack, e.g., ‘Iraq, what is the responsible course of conduct for American Muslims?  In this essay published first in the Islamic Monthly, I put forward an argument that requires American Muslims to create a language of critical citizenship, one that incorporates Islamic moral concerns in a critique of US policy, but at the same time transforms Islamic moral concerns into more universal ones, with the hope of creating a political discourse that reconciles the political values of modern liberal citizenship with the political values of Islam.

I have spent four of the last five days inside this imposing structure.  I hope that sometime in the future I will be in a position to discuss why I was there.  In any case, as I entered the courthouse this morning, I happened to notice a series of four inscriptions, three with quotes of former justices of the United States Supreme Court, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.,  Justice Louis Brandeis, and Justice Felix Franfurter, and the fourth for the US’s first Catholic President, John F. Kennedy.  I think these quotes sum up the best aspirations of our legal system.  I earnestly hope that the judges and lawyers who ply their craft on a daily basis inside the imposing halls of the John Joseph Mackley Federal Courthouse honor those quotations.

A facebook friend posted an article today which provided polling data in support of the conclusion that Egyptians overwhelmingly believe that continued protests are damaging Egypt’s future prospects by the shocking margin of 84% (against) to 13% (in favor).  I don’t doubt the accuracy of these numbers; I just doubt their normative significance as a guide for future political action.  I then engaged in a lengthy discussion with a couple of friends on this point, and another facebook friend suggested I post this on my blog to give it wider distribution.  So, here it goes: