Throughout all this, skeptics have argued that this is a lost cause, and that democracy and Islam are incompatible.

So it is heartening to see the integration of democracy and Islam taking place in three huge countries whose Muslim populations make up somewhere between a quarter and a third of the world’s entire Muslim populace.

Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population (205 million), is undergoing national elections that will strengthen its steady democratic progress. India, which has a minority population of some 150 million Muslims, is finishing up month-long elections for a nation of more than 1 billion people. Turkey, with a Muslim population of 77 million, is a working example of a secular democracy in a Muslim country.

These examples may not offer a blueprint for the mostly undemocratic Arab world. But their success does offer welcome evidence that Islam and democracy can coexist, maybe even integrate.

… When I hear people speak about “what’s wrong with Islam” or “Islam and the West”, my immediate response is to remind them that there is no such thing as a single “Islam” that can be diagnosed, analyzed or engaged as a monolithic whole. The variety and dynamism of changes in Islamic societies, and in the hearts and minds of individual Muslims, is staggering these days. This is understandable, given the intensity of the degradation that many Muslim-majority societies have suffered in the past half-century of foreign manipulation, domestic mismanagement, and abuse of political power, and local deterioration of social, environmental and economic conditions.

…. It is noteworthy that the overwhelming majority of Muslims and Islamist groups has rejected the violent strategy of the small Salafist militants such as Al-Qaeda. But it is also worrying that the core grievances of both the militants and the non-violent majority are virtually identical. Salafist militants decide to bomb foreigners and Muslims alike, but most disgruntled Muslims deal with their predicament of imprecise citizenship rights in slightly incoherent and often corrupt countries by trying to lead more pious lives, while challenging the status quo and the power elite as they can.

If we disaggregate Islamic societies or Muslim-majority countries into our six categories of individuals, community, political, transnational and nationalist groups, core religious values, and a handful of extremists, we would appreciate that most Muslims and Islamist groups have responded to their individual and national predicaments with patience, rationality and non-violence….

Related articles:

• Islam
• Islam and Muslim

Yesterday afternoon, nine Muslim passengers, including three young children were ordered off an AirTran flight going to Orlando from Reagan National Airport , after a couple of passengers thought they overheard a suspicious remark.

Headed to Florida for a religious retreat, all members of the party were US born citizens, and subsequently were cleared for travel by FBI agents, characterizing the entire incident as a big misunderstanding. However, the passengers claim AirTran refused to rebook them even after gaining clearance. With help from the FBI, they managed to book seats on another carrier, but had to pay for them.

According to Kashif Irfan, 34, one of the party removed from the plane, the incident took place when his brother, Atif, 29, and his wife wondered, which would be the safest place to sit on an airplane.

Irfan is of the opinion that his group was profiled on the basis of their appearance, as five of the six adults in the party claimed South Asian descent, were traditionally Muslim in appearance i. e. men with beards and women wearing headscarves. Irfan and his brother, an anesthesiologist and lawyer, respectively, were born in Detroit and reside in Alexandria with their families. They were travelling with their wives, a friend and Irfan’s three sons, aged 7, 4 and 2.

Tad Hutcheson, AirTran spokesman defending the airline’s handling of the incident, denied any wrong-doing, saying they were only following federal rules. The pilot decided to postpone the flight after the federal marshals on board the plane, had reported the incident to the airport police.

A little smile, a word of cheer, A bit of love from someone near, A little gift from one held dear, Best wishes for the coming year… These make a Merry Christmas!

Can Muslim Say ‘Merry Christmas’?

Yes, you can. Mahmudi Asyari and Muizzudin write a good piece appeared on the Jakarta Post (24/12/08):

Indonesian Muslims still have very different opinions about wishing someone “Merry Christmas”. Some of them believe it is OK to do so, while some others see it differently.

Actually, what all Indonesian Muslims do now is to refer to the Holy Koran, Mary Chapter, verses 33-34. “Peace on me the day I was born, and the day I die, and the day I shall be raised alive! Such was Jesus, son of Mary: (this is) a statement of the truth concerning which they doubt.”

The two verses do not ban Muslims from wishing “Merry Christmas” as long as they mean to confess that Jesus is just a human and not God (Tafseer Ibn Katsir, Vol. III/127). M. Quraish Shihab even mentioned that the human aspect is significant in Islam. If there is no problem with the human aspect, there is no problem then for Muslims to extend a congratulations to anyone who celebrates the birthday of someone who later became a Prophet and a Messenger.

Read full story here.

It may be impossible to know whether the five Muslim immigrants convicted Monday of conspiring to kill American military personnel would have attacked at Fort Dix or anywhere else if left unchecked.

Prosecutors say the time to act against terrorist plotters is before blood is shed. But the defense and some Muslim leaders say the men were goaded into tough talk by paid government informants and never would have followed their words with action.

The conspiracy conviction means the jury found that the defendants, who lived in and around Philadelphia for years, had an agreement to kill soldiers and had taken at least one step toward carrying it out. The government did not have to prove the men had a target or a timeline for an attack. The jury acquitted all five suspects on attempted murder charges — which would have required the panel to concluded that the men had taken “substantial” steps toward killing.

There was no fanfare, no press release when Keith Ellison made the pilgrimage to the Muslim holy city of Mecca last week.

“We weren’t really trying to turn this into a political thing,” said the Democratic congressman from Minneapolis. “This is just me trying to be the best person I can be.”

Downplaying his role as the first member of Congress to make the Hajj, as the pilgrimage is known, Ellison called the experience “transformative.”

“It really didn’t have anything to do with me being a congressman,” said Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress.

Further reading:

• Keith Ellison the First American Muslim Legislator
• Keith Ellison, Quran and “American Civilisation”

Around midday, the Grand Mosque, Islam’s holiest shrine, was packed with pilgrims performing the Tawaf al-Widaa, or the “farewell circling” of the Kaaba — walking seven times around the cubical structure while praying and reading the Quran, Islam’s holy book.

Many of the nearly 3 million pilgrims came by bus or on foot from the nearby plain of Mina, where they had completed the ritual known as the stoning of the devil earlier in the day. Others sat on mats along the three-mile route, reciting passages from the Quran while waiting for the crowds to ease.

More on Hajj:

• The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown sent his warm wishes
• What A Billion Plus People Are Celebrating Today

Muslims who undertake the hajj “return with more positive views towards people from other countries,” are more likely to say “that people of different religions are equal,” and are twice as likely as other religious Muslims to condemn Osama bin Laden, the study found.

“People become more orthodox yet more tolerant,” one of the study’s authors, Asim Ijaz Khwaja of Harvard University, said of hajjis — those who make the pilgrimage.

He described the study’s findings Monday, as this year’s annual pilgrimage reached its climax, the symbolic stoning of the devil on the festival of Eid al-Adha, an Islamic holiday that traditionally marks the end of the hajj.

MOUNT ARAFAT, Saudi Arabia (AP) Creating a sea of white robes, nearly 3 million Muslims converged on a rocky desert hill outside Mecca on Sunday to perform the ritual of forgiveness marking the climax of the annual hajj.

Chants of “at thy service, my God, at thy service,” reverberated through the valley as the pilgrims stood to pray for God’s forgiveness in the most spiritual moment of the entire pilgrimage.

Intellectuals and community leaders called for greater efforts to combat religious fanaticism.