The Premier prayed with us

Today I went to the first* Juma at my mosque. It was the same prayer that Premier Dalton McGuinty attended and it was humbling to see him visit our still-under-construction mosque. He spoke for only 10 minutes, but the message he gave was really important.
(Paraphrasing): Hold onto your faith. It's what makes our society unique. Historically, societies were built upon the idea of sameness; that if we're the same colour, share the same culture and tradition that we would get along. In Canada, we're inviting others to come here and be themselves. He cited the recent Christmas tree controversy as well as the Quran issue in the States and said we shouldn't have these debates. There shouldn't be a problem with celebrating Christmas, Hannukah, Eid or Diwali.

I feel this idea of being "open" to others is something that our Muslim community desperately needs. We complain (with good reason) of Islamophobia, but have we looked at the way we see other religious or ethnic groups? None of the dinner parties we go to are complete without cracking a joke about the Chinese, Sikhs or Jews. If we want others to respect us and our needs, we need to respect them as well. (This was also a theme that I'm glad was floating around at RIS... speaking of which, I haven't written about it but do have a load of pictures I'll be putting up on Flickr sooon.)

Then the Premier did what I'd like to see more politicians do. He prayed with us. He could have stepped out and back in when it was time to meet the public, but he read 2 raka'ahs of Juma in the first row right next to the imam.

*Because of the current lack of space at our mosque, we have two Juma congregations.

The Muslim malaise

Apologies for the recent "Cut & Paste" posts... but I don't have much to blog about (other than the fact that I'm going for my oral surgery on Tuesday).

I was just browsing the Star's website and this article caught my eye. It's a good read. For some reason, the Expand function isn't working (probably been that way since I changed the template... but I never used it since then), so I can't hide the rest of the post. Will get around to fixing it soon.




Aug. 20, 2006. 07:03 AM
HAROON SIDDIQUI

He who wrongs a Jew or a Christian will have me as his accuser on the Day of Judgment.

— Prophet Muhammad

Contrary to the popular belief that the West is under siege from Muslim terrorists, it is Muslims who have become the biggest victims of the attacks of September 11, 2001, as inconceivable as that would have seemed in the aftermath of the murder of 2,900 Americans. Since then, between 34,000 and 100,000 Iraqis have been killed by the Americans or the insurgents. Nobody knows how many have been killed in Afghanistan. In the spots hit by terrorists — from London and Madrid to Amman, Istanbul, Riyadh and Jeddah, through Karachi to Bali and Jakarta — more Muslims have been killed and injured than non-Muslims.

None of this is to say that Muslims do not have problems that they must address. They do. But the problems are not quite what many in the West make them out to be.

One of the strangest aspects of the post-9/11 world is that, despite all the talk about Muslim terrorism, there is hardly any exploration of the complex causes of Muslim rage. Muslims are in a state of crisis, but their most daunting problems are not religious. They are geopolitical, economic and social — problems that have caused widespread Muslim despair and, in some cases, militancy, both of which are expressed in the religious terminology that Muslim masses relate to.

Most Muslims live in the developing world, much of it colonized by Western powers as recently as 50 years ago. Not all Muslim shortcomings emanate from colonialism and neo-imperialism, but several do.

As part of the spoils of the First World War, Britain and France helped themselves to much of the Ottoman Empire, including Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and what is now Israel, Jordan and the Palestine Authority. In later years, they and other European colonial powers created artificial states such as Kuwait and Nigeria. Or they divided peoples and nations along sectarian lines, such as bifurcating India in 1947 into Muslim Pakistan and largely Hindu India. In more recent years, the United States has maintained repressive proxy regimes in the Middle East to stifle public anti-Israeli sentiments, keep control of oil and maintain a captive market for armaments.

While the past casts a long shadow over Muslims, it is the present that haunts them. Hundreds of millions live in zones of conflict, precisely in the areas of European and American meddling, past and present — U.S.-occupied Iraq, U.S.-controlled Afghanistan, the Israeli Occupied Territories, and Kashmir, the disputed Muslim state on the border of India and Pakistan in the foothills of the Himalayas. Only the Russian war on Muslim Chechnya is not related to the history of Western machinations, but even that has had the tacit support of the Bush administration. These conflicts, along with the economic sanctions on Iraq, have killed an estimated 1.3 million Muslims in the last 15 years alone. Why are we surprised that Muslims are up in arms?

In addition, nearly 400 million Muslims live under authoritarian despots, many of them Western puppets, whose corruption and incompetence have left their people in economic and social shambles.

It is against this backdrop that one must look at the current malaise of Muslims and their increasing emotional reliance on their faith.

Economic Woes

The total GDP of the 56 members of the Islamic Conference, representing more than a quarter of the world's population, is less than 5 per cent of the world's economy. Their trade represents 7 per cent of global trade, even though more than two-thirds of the world's oil and gas lie under Muslim lands.

The standard of living in Muslim nations is abysmal even in the oil-rich regions, because of unconscionable gaps between the rulers and the ruled. A quarter of impoverished Pakistan's budget goes to the military. Most of the $2 billion a year of American aid given to Egypt as a reward for peace with Israel goes to the Egyptian military.

The most undemocratic Muslim states, which also happen to be the closest allies of the U.S., are the most economically backward.

The Arab nations, with a combined population of 280 million, muster a total GDP less than that of Spain. The rate of illiteracy among Arabs is 43 per cent, worse than that of much poorer nations. Half of Arab women are illiterate, representing two-thirds of the 65 million Arabs who cannot read or write. About 10 million Arab children are not in school. The most-educated Arabs live abroad, their talents untapped, unlike those of the Chinese and Indian diasporas, who have played significant roles in jump-starting the economies of their native lands.

A disproportionate percentage of the world's youth are Muslim. Half of Saudi Arabia's and a third of Iran's populations are younger than 20. There are few jobs for them. "Young and unemployed" is a phenomenon common to many Muslim nations.

A majority of the world's 12 million to 15 million refugees are Muslims, fleeing poverty and oppression. Europe's 20 million Muslims suffer high unemployment and poverty, especially in Germany and France. It was inevitable that many Muslims would find comfort in Islam.

Islamic Resurgence

Fundamentalism has been on the rise, and not just in Islam. There has been a parallel rise in Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism, with its inevitable political fallout — in the Israeli settler movement in the Occupied Territories, the politicization of the American conservative right (culminating in the election and re-election of George W. Bush), the rise to power of the Hindu nationalists in India, the Sikh separatist movement in the Punjab in India, and the aggressive nationalism of the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka.

That many Muslims have become "fundamentalist" does not mean that they are all fanatic and militant. Nor is the Muslim condition fully explained by the use of petro-dollars. First, Arab financial support for Islamic institutions around the world is still no match for the resources available for Christian global missionary or Zionist political work. Second, and more to the point, the rise of Islam is not confined to areas of Arab financial influence; it is a worldwide phenomenon.

Mosques are full. The use of the hijab (headscarf ) is on the rise. Madrassahs (religious schools) are packed. Zakat (Islamic charity) is at record levels, especially where governments have failed to provide essential services. In Egypt, much of the health care, emergency care and education are provided by the Muslim Brotherhood, in the Occupied Territories by Hamas, in Pakistan and elsewhere by groups that may be far less political but are no less Islamic.

With state institutions riddled with corruption and nepotism, some of the most talented Muslims, both rich and poor, have abandoned the official arena and retreated into the non-governmental domain of Islamic civil society.

The empty public sphere has been filled with firebrands — ill-tutored and ill-informed clergy or populist politicians who rally the masses with calls for jihad (struggle) for sundry causes. The greater the injustices in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Israeli Occupied Territories, Chechnya or elsewhere, the greater the public support for those calling for jihad. Jihad has also proven to be good business for many a mullah (Muslim priest) who has become rich or influential, or both, preaching it. Meanwhile, unelected governments lack the legitimacy and confidence to challenge the militant clerics, and fluctuate between ruthlessly repressing them and trying to out-Islamize them.

To divert domestic anger abroad, many governments also allow and sometimes encourage the radicals to rant at the U.S. and rave at Israel, or just at Jews. Sometimes even the elected leaders join in, as has Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinijad, denying the Holocaust and calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map."

In reality, most Muslim states are powerless to address the international crises that their publics want addressed. They have neither the military nor the economic and political clout to matter much to the U.S., the only power that counts these days. Or, as in the case of Egypt, Jordan, and the oil-rich Arab oligarchies, they are themselves dependent on Washington for their own survival.

`Muslims have developed a complex. They think they won't be heard if they don't shout. Every statement is like a war' Sharifa Zuriah Founder, Sisters in Islam

Feeling abandoned, the Muslim masses find comfort in religion. The Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation was a secular struggle before it became "Islamic." The same was true of the Lebanese resistance to the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, and also of the Chechen resistance to Russian repression.

Similarly, domestic critics of authoritarian regimes have found a hospitable home in the mosque. Islam being their last zone of comfort, most Muslims react strongly — sometimes irrationally and violently — when their faith or their Prophet is mocked or criticized, as the world witnessed during the Danish cartoon crisis. They react the way the angry disenfranchised do — hurling themselves into the streets, shouting themselves hoarse and destroying property, without much concern for the consequences, and engendering even more hostility in the West toward Muslims and Islam. But, as the American civil rights leader Martin Luther King famously said, riots are the voice of the voiceless.

Muslims have developed a "siege mentality, which is what the screaming, dogmatic and atavistic clerics" appeal to, says Chandra Muzaffar, Malaysian Muslim human rights activist. As he was telling me this in Kuala Lumpur in 2005, Sharifa Zuriah, a founder of Sisters in Islam, an advocacy group for Malaysian Muslim women, intervened: "Muslims have developed a complex. They think they won't be heard if they don't shout. Every statement is like a war."

Then there is real war, the war of terrorism.

Terrorism's Fallout

"That a majority of Al Qaeda are Muslims is not to say that a majority of Muslims are Al Qaeda, or subscribe to its tenets," Stephen Schulhofer, professor of law at New York University, told me in 2003. But it is also true that most terrorists these days are Muslims. That may only be a function of the times we live in — yesterday's terrorists came from other religions and tomorrow's may hail from some other. Still, terrorism has forced a debate among Muslims, who are divided into two camps. One side says that Muslims should no more have to apologize for their extremists than Christians, Jews or Hindus or anybody else, and that doing so only confirms the collective guilt being placed on Muslims. The other side believes that as long as some Muslims are blowing up civilians in suicide bombings, slitting the throats of hostages and committing other grisly acts, it is the duty of all Muslims to speak out and challenge the murderers' warped theology.

The latter view has prevailed. Terrorism — suicide bombings in particular— has been widely condemned. Just because an overwhelming majority of Muslims condemn Osama bin Laden and other extremists, however, does not mean that they feel any less for Muslims in Iraq or Palestine. Or that the internal debate that he has forced on Muslims is new. Throughout their 1,400-year history, Muslims have argued and quarrelled over various interpretations of the Qur'an and religious traditions.

But it is a sign of the times that the most extreme interpretation of the Qur'an appeals to Muslim masses these days, and that far too many clerics are attacking Christians and Jews and delivering fire-and-brimstone sermons full of the imagery of war and martyrdom. This is contrary to the message of the Qur'an — Do not argue with the followers of earlier revelation other than in the most kindly manner (29:46) — and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad: "Do not consider me better than Moses," and, "I am closest of all people to Jesus, son of Mary."

For all the emphasis that today's clerics put on the Prophet's war record, he spent a total of less than a week in actual battle in the 23 years of his prophethood. He advised his followers to "be moderate in religious matters, for excess caused the destruction of earlier communities." A moderate himself, he smiled often, spoke softly and delivered brief sermons. "The Prophet disliked ranting and raving," wrote Imam Bukhari, the ninth-century Islamic scholar of the Prophet's sayings. Ayesha, the Prophet's wife, reported that "he spoke so few words that you could count them." His most famous speech, during the Haj pilgrimage in AD 632, which laid down an entire covenant, was less than 2,800 words.

Muhammad was respectful of Christians and Jews. Hearing the news that the king of Ethiopia had died, he told his followers, "A righteous man has died today; so stand up and pray for your brother." When a Christian delegation came to Medina, he invited them to conduct their service in the mosque, saying, "This is a place consecrated to God." When Saffiyah, one of his wives, complained that she was taunted for her Jewish origins, he told her, "Say unto them, `my father is Aaron, and my uncle is Moses.'"

Yet angry Muslims, not unlike African Americans not too long ago, pay little heed to voices of moderation. This is partly a reflection of the fact that there is no central religious authority in Islam. Only the minority Shiites have a religious hierarchy of ayatollahs, who instruct followers on religious and sometimes political matters. The majority Sunnis do not have the equivalent of the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury. A central tenet of their faith is that there is no intermediary between the believer and God. This makes for great democracy — everyone is free to issue a fatwa (religious ruling) and everyone else is free to ignore it. But the "fatwa chaos" does create confusion — among non-Muslims, who are spooked by the red-hot rhetoric, and also among Muslims, who are left wondering about the "right answers" to some of the most pressing issues of the day.

Muslim Apologetics

There are two kinds of Muslim apologetics. The first is denial: there's little or nothing wrong with Muslims, when there clearly is. The second, seen among some Muslims in the West, takes the form of self-flagellation, of apologizing for their faith or distancing themselves from it. To wit:

"Yes, the problem is Islam, and we must fix it." (Why is Islam any more of a problem than any other faith? And how are they going to fix it?)

"I am a Muslim but I am not a fundamentalist Muslim." (Do Christians say, "I am Christian but not an evangelical Christian?")

"I am a Muslim but ashamed to call myself one." (Do all Hindus have to apologize for those few who, in 1992, went on a mosque-ravaging rampage in India?)

Some of these sentiments may be genuinely held. More likely, they reflect the immigrant pathology of catering to majority mores, a new twist on the past practice of immigrants to North America anglicizing their names.

Such defensiveness aside, Muslims do suffer from deeper problems. Many are preoccupied with the minutiae of rituals (Should one wash the bare feet before prayers or do so symbolically over the socks?) at the expense of the centrality of the faith, which is fostering peace, justice and compassion, not just for Muslims but for everyone. Many Muslims are too judgmental of each other, whereas a central tenet of their faith is that it is up to God to judge — Your Lord knows best who goes astray (53:30) (also, 6:117, 16:125, 17:94, 28:56, 68:7).

Some Muslims have taken to a culture of conspiracy theories. Hence the notion that Princess Diana did not die in an accident but was killed because the British royal family did not want her to marry Dodi Al Fayed, a Muslim. Or the canard that Jews working at the World Trade Center had advance notice of 9/11.

There is too much of a literalist reading of the Qur'an (a trait, ironically, also adopted by anti-Islamists in the West). There is too little ijtehad (religious innovation) as called for by Islam to keep believers in tune with their times. Theological rigidity and narrow-mindedness have led, among other things, to Sunni hostility toward the minority Shiites, as seen in the sectarian killings in Pakistan.

Muslims complain about the West's double standards, yet they have their own. While they often criticize the United States and Europe for mistreating Muslims, they rarely speak up against the persecution of non-Muslims by Muslims. They also show a high tolerance for Muslims killing fellow Muslims. The Sudanese genocide of the non-Arab Muslims of Darfur drew mostly silence. The killing of Shiites by the Sunnis in Iraq was shrugged off as part of the anti-U.S. resistance. The overt and subtle racism of the oil-rich Arab states toward the millions of their guest workers goes unmourned.

Muslims do not have much to be proud of in the contemporary world. So they take comfort in their burgeoning numbers. At the turn of the millennium in 2000, there were many learned papers projecting the rise in Muslim population. But if Muslims have not achieved much at 1.3 billion, they are not likely to at 1.5 billion, either.

To escape the present, many Muslims hark back to their glorious past: how Islam was a reform movement; how Muslims led the world in knowledge, in astronomy, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, natural sciences, philosophy and physics; and how the Islamic empires were successful primarily because, with some egregious exceptions, they nurtured the local cultures and respected the religions of their non-Muslim majority populations. This is why Egypt and Syria remained non-Muslim under Muslim rule for 300 years and 600 years, respectively, and India always remained majority Hindu.

As true as all that history is, it is not very helpful today unless Muslims learn something from it — to value human life; accept each other's religious differences; respect other faiths; return to their historic culture of academic excellence, scientific inquiry and economic self-reliance; and learn to live with differences of opinion and the periodic rancorous debates that mark democracies.

It may be unfair to berate ordinary Muslims, given that too many are struggling to survive, that nearly half live under authoritarian regimes where they can speak up only on pain of being incarcerated, tortured or killed, and that they are helpless spectators to the sufferings of fellow Muslims in an unjust world order. Yet Muslims have no choice but to confront their challenges, for Allah never changes a people's state unless they change what's in themselves (13:11).

Bush & Bush

At the White House Correspondents Dinner.
(pretty funny)

George Galloway

This video has been floating around in emails and on several websites, so I thought I'd share it here.

He tells it like it is.

On violence in the Middle East

Felt it appropriate to link to a friend's blog:

http://albaal.blogspot.com/2006/07/all-in-days-work.html

Bush sings

"Sunday Bloody Sunday" by U2

Blogger blocked in Pakistan?!

I always thought the reason my fiancee couldn't access my blog was because of a technical error with her computer.

Turns out that the Supreme Court of Pakistan has banned all weblogs on blogger.com

Consequently, the government blocked a number of websites hosting the cartoons deemed to be sacriligous. This ban included all the weblogs hosted at the popular blogging service blogger.com, as some bloggers had put up copies of the cartoons – particularly many non-Pakistani blogs.
On the hearing on March 14, 2006, the PTA informed the Supreme Court that all websites displaying sacrilegious cartoons have been blocked. The bench issued directions to Attorney General of Pakistan Makhdoom Ali Khan to assist the court on Monday on how it could exercise jurisdiction to prevent the availability of blasphemous material on websites the world over.
The blanket ban on the blogspot.com blogs was lifted on May 2, 2006. Shortly thereafterm the blanket ban was reimposed, and extended to typepad blogs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Internet_Censorship_in_Pakistan#Supreme_Court_directive

an interview from... well, CNN

A CNN anchor speaks with the father of Nicholas Berg, who was beheaded by al-Zarqawi.
Who knows if and how long the link will stay up, so I've copied the article here. Click Expand to read it.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/06/08/berg.interview/index.html

Beheaded man's father: Revenge breeds revenge

Michael Berg talks about the death of his son and al-Zarqawi

Thursday, June 8, 2006; Posted: 11:19 p.m. EDT (03:19 GMT)

(CNN) -- The U.S.-led coalition's No. 1 wanted man in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- who conducted a campaign of insurgency bombings, beheadings and killings of Americans and Iraqi civilians -- was killed in a U.S. airstrike.

A gruesome video was posted on Islamic Web sites in May, 2004, depicting a man believed to be al-Zarqawi beheading Nicholas Berg, an American businessman who was working in Iraq.

CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien talks to Nicholas Berg's father, Michael Berg, by phone from Wilmington, Delaware, for his reaction to the news.

O'BRIEN: Mr. Berg, thank you for talking with us again. It's nice to have an opportunity to talk to you. Of course, I'm curious to know your reaction, as it is now confirmed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the man who is widely credited and blamed for killing your son, Nicholas, is dead.

MICHAEL BERG: Well, my reaction is I'm sorry whenever any human being dies. Zarqawi is a human being. He has a family who are reacting just as my family reacted when Nick was killed, and I feel bad for that. (Watch Berg compare Zarqawi to President Bush -- 1:44)

I feel doubly bad, though, because Zarqawi is also a political figure, and his death will re-ignite yet another wave of revenge, and revenge is something that I do not follow, that I do want ask for, that I do not wish for against anybody. And it can't end the cycle. As long as people use violence to combat violence, we will always have violence.

O'BRIEN: I have to say, sir, I'm surprised. I know how devastated you and your family were, frankly, when Nick was killed in such a horrible, and brutal and public way.

BERG: Well, you shouldn't be surprised, because I have never indicated anything but forgiveness and peace in any interview on the air.

O'BRIEN: No, no. And we have spoken before, and I'm well aware of that. But at some point, one would think, is there a moment when you say, 'I'm glad he's dead, the man who killed my son'?

BERG: No. How can a human being be glad that another human being is dead?

O'BRIEN: There have been family members who have weighed in, victims, who've said that they don't think he's a martyr in heaven, that they think, frankly, he went straight to hell ...

You know, you talked about the fact that he's become a political figure. Are you concerned that he becomes a martyr and a hero and, in fact, invigorates the insurgency in Iraq?

BERG: Of course. When Nick was killed, I felt that I had nothing left to lose. I'm a pacifist, so I wasn't going out murdering people. But I am -- was not a risk-taking person, and yet now I've done things that have endangered me tremendously.

I've been shot at. I've been showed horrible pictures. I've been called all kinds of names and threatened by all kinds of people, and yet I feel that I have nothing left to lose, so I do those things.

Now, take someone who in 1991, who maybe had their family killed by an American bomb, their support system whisked away from them, someone who, instead of being 59, as I was when Nick died, was 5-years-old or 10-years-old. And then if I were that person, might I not learn how to fly a plane into a building or strap a bag of bombs to my back?

That's what is happening every time we kill an Iraqi, every time we kill anyone, we are creating a large number of people who are going to want vengeance. And, you know, when are we ever going to learn that that doesn't work?

O'BRIEN: There's an alternate reading, which would say at some point, Iraqis will say the insurgency is not OK -- that they'll be inspired by the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the sense of he was turned in, for example, we believe by his own No. 2, No. 3 leadership in his ranks.

And, that's actually them saying we do not want this kind of violence in our country. Experts whom we've spoken to this morning have said this is a critical moment where Iraqis need to figure out which direction the country is going to go. That would be an alternate reading to the scenario you're pointing to. (Watch how Iraqi leaders cheered after learning about al-Zarqawi's death -- 4:31)

BERG: Yes, well, I don't believe that scenario, because every time news of new atrocities committed by Americans in Iraq becomes public, more and more of the everyday Iraqi people who tried to hold out, who tried to be peaceful people lose it and join -- what we call the insurgency, and what I call the resistance, against the occupation of one sovereign nation.

O'BRIEN: There's a theory that a struggle for democracy, you know...

BERG: Democracy? Come on, you can't really believe that that's a democracy there when the people who are running the elections are holding guns. That's not democracy.

O'BRIEN: There's a theory that as they try to form some kind of government, that it's going to be brutal, it's going to be bloody, there's going to be loss, and that's the history of many countries -- and that's just what a lot of people pay for what they believe will be better than what they had under Saddam Hussein.

BERG: Well, you know, I'm not saying Saddam Hussein was a good man, but he's no worse than George Bush. Saddam Hussein didn't pull the trigger, didn't commit the rapes. Neither did George Bush. But both men are responsible for them under their reigns of terror. (Watch

I don't buy that. Iraq did not have al Qaeda in it. Al Qaeda supposedly killed my son.

Under Saddam Hussein, no al Qaeda. Under George Bush, al Qaeda.

Under Saddam Hussein, relative stability. Under George Bush, instability.

Under Saddam Hussein, about 30,000 deaths a year. Under George Bush, about 60,000 deaths a year. I don't get it. Why is it better to have George Bush the king of Iraq rather than Saddam Hussein?

O'BRIEN: Michael Berg is the father of Nicholas Berg, the young man, the young businessman who was beheaded so brutally in Iraq back in May of 2004.

In other, unrelated news, I went to see the Da Vinci Code today. The movie really sucked compared to the book... but that's always the case. The first half of the movie was really boring and the second half, although somewhat better, couldn't make up for the first. Luckily for us, a couple behind us kept chatting throughout the movie... so a little complaining got us free passes. I think I'll go see X3 next.

I hope my last post wasn't seen as having already passed a judgement on the accused. It may have seemed that way, but that's what how I feel if they are found to be guilty. They're innocent unless found otherwise.

These allegations really hurt deep inside. Although I don't know any of the accused, it feels as though it has happened to my own friends. They seem like the same group of people I knew in high school. And while I can't feel exactly what must be going through the minds of their families and friends, I can pray that justice is served and steps are taken to ensure this doesn't happen again. If innocent, let them not share the same ordeals that people such as Maher Arar or the 19 Pakistanis faced.

The media coverage of the bail hearings today was sickening. It reminded me of the same hype and fear mongering that was spewed out by the American media after 9/11. Hundreds of local and international news outlets were at the courthouse, including many from south of the border and even al-Jazeera. It was really sad to view the images of women in burkhas being chased after in an attempt to get some information. I think it was the father of one of the accused who said "The media has already found them guilty". Equally frustrating was hearing the phrases "terror suspects" and "prayed at this mosque" used over and over again in the same sentence... as if to make a connection between young Muslim worshippers and terrorist activities.

Another point is that some of their rights are being infringed upon. Although it is understandable why they shouldn't be allowed to pray together, they shouldn't be denied that right individually. Neither should they be restricted to communicating with their lawyers via telephone, but rather should be allowed to meet privately. A lot of evidence is also being withheld from the defence lawyers.

These issues need to be addressed by Muslim leaders in the community as it will only lead to an unfair trial. Strangely, when Zafar Bangash began speaking about the injustices done to Maher Arar and the 19 Pakistanis in the video from the press conference, it was cut off.


I should draw your attention to my friend Asmaa's blog. She's always better with words than I am, and has pretty much written the other side of how I feel towards this whole thing.

17 Arrested in Toronto

Update: See a video of the press conference at the Islamic Foundation here.

I'm sure you've heard of this at some point in the past few days:
17 men arrested on terrorism related charges in Toronto.

This news comes as a shock and disappointment to me... to find out that Muslim youth, not much older or younger than I am, could allegedly be part of something like this so close to home. Most of the accused are from Mississauga and I think one or two are from Scarborough.

Although innocent until proven guilty, if they are infact guilty it serves as a wake up call for Muslim families, organizations, mosques, schools and the general public as well. This kind of thing does happen in Canada... we're not immune to it, as many people might think.

Yesterday, there was a press conference at the Islamic Foundation of Toronto (Nugget Mosque) where one of the accused used to attend. I hadn't had any prior information about it or else I would have attended, but I did catch part of it on the radio on the way to work. Shaikh Patel, Imam of the mosque and acting as spokesperson for the Canadian Council of Muslim Theologians read out a statement, (among other points) thanking CSIS and the government for thwarting a planned terrorist attack.

I think everyone, even those Muslims who are critical of CSIS and the government need to be thankful. This isn't about racial profiling or prejudice. It's about public safety... my safety... yours... ours.

What's troubling is that while one group may have been uncovered, there may be many more... not just in Toronto, but across Canada. What is equally troubling is the backlash that the Muslim community will undoubtedly suffer as a result of these arrests. Already the IMO has fallen victim to vandalism and it may not be incorrect to assume we'll be seeing more of this in the future. The young men who have been charged fit the description of so many young Muslim men across the GTA. Members of Muslim organizations in school, punctual with prayers... the average Muslim guy. (The Toronto Star has a lengthy article "Schoolkids to terror suspects"... which I've included in this post. Click Expand to read it). It would be very unfortunate for the rest of us to be cast in the same light as these individuals. At the same time though, it would be unfortunate for more of these people to exist among us.

It took me almost an hour to write this post because of the mixed feelings caused by these arrests.


Schoolkids to terror suspects
Trio underwent swift transformation from popular kids to devout, depressed

Jun. 5, 2006. 11:48 AM
MICHELLE SHEPHARD AND ISABEL TEOTONIO
STAFF REPORTERS

They were the popular kids, outspoken, always getting the laughs and experiencing all the regular teenage angst.

At Mississauga's Meadowvale Secondary School, Saad Khalid, Fahim Ahmad and Zakaria Amara — Zak, to his Grade 9 pals — were close friends and though they were observant Muslims, back in 2001 they spoke mainly of girls rather than Islam.

As the four high school years passed, the three friends began to change. They became more serious, at times depressed, devout in their faith. Khalid created R.A.C., the "Religious Awareness Club," where he'd preach Islam during lunch hours in the school's drama room.

But there were still glimpses of the goofiness for which they were known. In a 2005 video made by Khalid and other friends, he spoofed the stylized Bollywood films. Khalid donned a hijab for his role as a forlorn lover and in one scene is shown running in slow motion across a field with his arms outstretched.

The movie starring 19-year-old Khalid is a jarring contrast to the images now of the three friends in prison suits, alleged by police to be members of a homegrown terrorist cell.

In a series of raids Friday night and Saturday morning, led by the RCMP's anti-terrorism task force, 17 suspects were arrested — five under the age of 18 who cannot be identified in accordance with Canadian law.

Most of the suspects are in their late teens or early 20s but the eldest two are 30 and 43. The unidentified youths attended the same Scarborough high school and allegedly knew one of the adult suspects, 19-year-old Amin Mohamed Durrani, but other details that may reveal the identities of the youths cannot be published.

The suspects come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and the majority are Canadian citizens.

It's only the second time in Canada since the Criminal Code was amended in 2001 to include terrorism offences that charges have been laid for terrorism, and the first time that police have made arrests to stop what they allege was an impending attack on Canadian soil.

The arrests are part of a continuing, multi-national probe into suspected terrorist cells in at least seven countries, a U.S. counter-terrorism official told the Los Angeles Times.

The senior U.S. law enforcement official said authorities are combing through evidence seized during the raids to look for possible connections between the 17 suspects and at least 18 other Islamic militants who have been arrested in locations including the United States, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Britain, Denmark and Sweden.

The RCMP will say little about the case or the suspects but through sources in the Muslim community, government, police and security services, most speaking to the Star on condition of anonymity, a picture is emerging of just who these 17 are, how they're connected, and what led to the investigation.

While the arrests took Canadians by surprise, the investigation into the group began in 2004 when Canada's spy service noted the fundamentalist views espoused by local youths on various Internet sites, sources said.

The arrests were brought on by the group's alleged purchase of three tonnes of ammonium nitrate, a massive amount of fertilizer that can be used to make bombs, such as the one that killed 168 people in Oklahoma City in the 1995 attack by Timothy McVeigh.

But the Star has learned that what the group actually acquired was not ammonium nitrate, since investigators monitoring the men learned of the alleged purchase of the fertilizer and intervened before the delivery, switching the potentially deadly material with a harmless substance. After the deal with the decoy was completed, 400 officers from across the province moved in for the arrests.

It's not yet known which members of the group are accused of being involved with the purchase of the material and the RCMP has not revealed what specific charges each suspect is facing. That's expected to be listed in a Brampton court tomorrow when the suspects appear for their bail hearings.

Family members and lawyers of the accused say they're eager to hear what details police will produce, pointing to past investigations in Canada where the evidence hasn't supported the initial claims.

Sources say evidence will show the youths travelled north to a "training camp," where they wore fatigues and made a video imitating warfare, conjuring images of the propaganda videos taped by Al Qaeda at the now-destroyed camps in Afghanistan before 9/11.

At a news conference Saturday, the RCMP displayed some of the seized items allegedly found at the camp such as a pockmarked door police said was used for shooting practice.

But those close to the accused wonder if this was not simply an overreaction by authorities and the trip north nothing more than teenagers dressing up and playing paintball.

Those who knew some the suspects in the various communities where they lived, say there's no doubt there were noticeable differences in their personalities in the last two years. They became activists for the plight of Muslims worldwide and allegedly felt Muslims were being targeted unfairly in Canada.

Much of that anger, according to sources close to the investigation, was allegedly directed at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the group listed the Toronto headquarters of CSIS, adjacent to the CN Tower, as one of its targets.

Saad Khalid's yearbook comments asked about devotion to Islam

Many of the suspects were not devout Muslims when they were younger but later were drawn to the strict interpretation of Islam, known as Wahhabism, which is widely practised in Saudi Arabia but also has a strong following worldwide, including in Canada.

Khalid could talk of little else by the time he graduated, former classmates said. As his classmates thanked their parents, reflected about the "ups and downs" of high school life and wondered "where the four years went," in their yearbook comments, Khalid began his with an Islamic creed that Allah is the only one worthy of worship.

"(D)o you really believe in it? You do? Then prove it," he wrote.

"Before us there were many ... after us there will be none ... we are the ones ... Allahu Akbar."

By 2005, he had also become depressed. Those who knew him attributed the change to his mother's death in an accident the year before and the fact a girlfriend broke up with him.

Ahmad and Amara transferred after Grade 10 from Meadowvale to another Mississauga high school where friends say they became reclusive.

In 2005, Ahmad allegedly rented a car for two of the other suspects in the group arrested Friday night — Ali Dirie and Yasin Mohamed.

On Aug. 13, the pair was arrested at the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie as they tried to smuggle guns and ammunition from the United States. Since authorities were already watching Ahmad, when he allegedly rented the car a flag was put on the licence plate so it would be searched upon its return to Canada.

Dirie and Mohamed both pleaded guilty last October and received two-year sentences. They were charged with the new terrorism offences in the Kingston-area penitentiary where they are serving their time.

Ahmad was not charged in the incident. When the Star interviewed him earlier this year he declined to comment on the car rental, saying he told everything that needed to be said to police.

At the end of high school Amara married a classmate named Nada Farooq. They now have an 8-month-old daughter and the pair attended university — Amara at Ryerson and Farooq at the University of Toronto, a former classmate says. Amara also worked part-time at a gas station and the couple was struggling financially.

Also charged this weekend was Amara's brother-in-law, Ahmad Mustafa Ghany, who married Farooq's sister.

Ahmad, like Khalid and Amara, often prayed at an Islamic centre near their Meadowvale high school. But sometime in 2005, they met 43-year-old Qayyum Abdul Jamal and also began praying and attending classes at the Ar-Rahman Islamic Centre in Mississauga.

Immigrant families who wanted a place to meet for prayer service and where their children could learn the Qur'an set up the centre in 1999.

Since the beginning, the centre has struggled financially and was never able to hire a full-time imam or academic scholar. So, directors relied on volunteers to run and operate the centre — Jamal was one of them.

Jamal, the eldest member of the group now charged, has been a key fixture at the centre since 1999, working as a caretaker who had enough free time to go and open the doors for several daily prayer sessions. An immigrant from Karachi, Pakistan, Jamal is married to a Canadian woman who converted to Islam and has four sons.

Jamal would sometimes lead the prayers.

"(Jamal) was very popular among the children and young people" recalled one member who asked to remain anonymous. "He played basketball, went camping and went fishing with them. He would sit down and talk with them — he hung out with the youth crowd."

Although Jamal's radical Wahhabist and anti-Western views alarmed some of the centre's members, many of the older members never perceived him as a dangerous extremist.

"During the 2004 election we were trying to recruit people at the centre to get involved and (Jamal) was against it," recalled Faheem Bukhari, who used to attend the centre. "He tore down the flyers we had put up. For him, getting involved in political procedure or process was forbidden. He thought people should focus on Islam."

Although none of the elders ever thought Jamal was "recruiting" youth, some were concerned about his influence.

"They were concerned that the kids hanging around him would become isolated from society, wearing different dress, not associating with the average Joe on the street," recalled Bukhari. "I think they were more concerned with the social behaviour of the kids.

Ohh... that's today?

(the following is an almost accurate translation of the conversation)

Time: 5:30pm
Me: So Mom, have you already gone to vote?
Mom: For...?
Me: Uh... elections?
Mom: Oh, that's today?
Dad: What elections?
Sister: For the government, Dad.
Dad: Oh, I completely forgot about it.
Me: Well, they've only been talking about it for... 8 weeks.

Several minutes later...
Dad: Who did you vote for?
Me: um, I voted. That's all that matters, isn't it?
Dad: Yes, but still...
Me: I voted for ***** <-- censored to keep my political views out of this discussion.
Dad: Ok, well you know we believe that it doesn't matter who you vote for. (He was referring to the Islamic concept of predestination/Qadr)
Me: Ofcourse it matters.
Dad: Oh, um, yes.. I mean every vote counts.