In what’s become major news and a source of national outrage, thanks to months of reporting by the Associated Press, the New York Police Department has spent years investigating American Muslims throughout the Northeast. Of particular concern is an “NYPD Secret” document dating from November 2006; titled “Weekly MSA Report,” the document was created by Mahmood Ahmad of the NYPD’s Cyber Intelligence Unit, who as “a daily routine” visited the Web sites, blogs, and forums of Muslim Student Associations at the State University of New York at Buffalo, New York University, the Rutgers Newark campus, and, less frequently, similar sites at least a dozen other colleges, including Yale, Columbia, and Syracuse.

Since the report’s release, President John E. Sexton of NYU, Yale’s Richard C. Levin, and Columbia’s Lee C. Bollinger have led a chorus of university leaders concerned about the surveillance. Bollinger, a First Amendment scholar, worried about any government actions that might “chill the freedom of thought or intrude upon student privacy.” Sexton found the reports “troubling and problematic.” The consequences of NYPD surveillance, especially those that reduce the “free and peaceful exchange of ideas ... even of genuinely controversial ideas,” Sexton emphasized, “are disquieting to our students and their families, harmful to our community-building efforts, and antithetical to the values we as a university cherish most highly.”

It’s not uncommon at times like this that we talk more about the controversy than anything interesting or valuable going on just below the surface of our outrageousness or outrage. Yet if we look at Officer Ahmad’s cursory report of forthcoming events that had Muslim students atwitter in late 2006, we can see something of what matters to young American Muslims, and perhaps more importantly, who it is that’s been guiding them along a bumpy road this past decade. Those named in the report come as no surprise to anyone who might join a Muslim Student Association: Imam Siraj Wahhaj, Imam Zaid Shakir, and Sheik Hamza Yusuf.

Not a Muslim myself, nor a believer in any appreciable way, I’ve spent much of the last 18 months with these scholars and their students: at a venerable mosque in Brooklyn and a storefront mosque in Oakland; at fund raisers in Washington, D.C.; New Brunswick, N.J.; New York City, and throughout the Bay Area; in online forums and open houses; in classrooms and in the basement of a Roman Catholic church; and in Muslim community centers located in low-rent business parks. When I asked Sheik Hamza recently whether he was surprised to see his name in the report, he said no. Although he added, “A lot of these young Muslims born here are not always aware of the history of real persecution of other communities. They would do well reading more history.”

Here’s what I know. These three men, all converts, appeal to young American Muslims. They appeal, in large part, because they were born and raised in this country and have a vision for Islam that is unmistakably American. Though they’ve all spent time studying in Muslim-majority countries—Imam Zaid and Sheik Hamza were away for years—their focus remains on building a Muslim community that looks and feels, in every way possible, American. They are not alone, of course, and they do not always agree, but they have been in the vanguard over the last 15 years, at least; their students are just now growing into leadership roles of their own, compelled by the notion that the religion must adapt, within the norms of the tradition, to the culture of the lands where Islam has moved over the centuries.

Committed to building things up and not tearing things down, Siraj Wahhaj, throughout the 1980s, revitalized his little corner of the world—the dangerous corner of Bedford Avenue and Fulton Street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn—through the efforts of his community at Masjid At-Taqwa, or the Mosque of God-Consciousness. When last December he celebrated the 30th anniversary of the masjid and raised funds to build a state-of-the-art community center in Brooklyn, including space for a school to serve hundreds of local kids, he invited not just Imam Zaid and Sheik Hamza but also called on the Brooklyn native, Muslim emcee and film star Yasiin Bey, formerly known as Mos Def, to offer his reflections on the neighborhood before the imam brought it back to life.

It’s true, of the three Muslim leaders named in the NYPD report, Imam Siraj remains the least comfortable with modern American life, and especially modern American policing. According to the NYU adjunct law professor Paul M. Barrett, who writes about Imam Siraj in his book American Islam (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007), he’s most inclined to think of law-enforcement allegations against Muslims as “evidence of a government conspiracy,” not one among the Muslims. My own interactions with Imam Siraj suggest he’s eased up in recent years. It’s also worth noting that his effort to clean up the crack houses of Bed-Stuy was met with high praise by the NYPD. The Brooklyn borough president honored the imam with an official Siraj Wahhaj Day on August 15, 2003.

As his own community in Brooklyn has grown, Siraj Wahhaj has become a national figure. He served for a time as vice president of the Islamic Society of North America, currently leads the Muslim Alliance in North America, and lectures and preaches around the country, usually on matters of special concern to inner-city communities. “Islam came,” he has said, “to deal with the inequalities in the neighborhood.” Moving seamlessly from English to Arabic and back, he brings Islamic ideas of justice, for instance, to bear on chronic unemployment among African-Americans, and in a recent speech, located within Islam the roots of black pride and self-love, bringing together two passages from the Koran: “It was Allah who created you in the womb—as He pleased.” His gloss: “So if Allah was pleased to make me a black man, I was happy to be a black man.”

Imam Zaid, who like Imam Siraj is African-American and who also has roots in poor, urban neighborhoods, has been likened to his hero Malcolm X. Born Ricky Mitchell in Berkeley, Calif., and raised in housing projects from Georgia to Connecticut, Imam Zaid, with Sheik Hamza, went on to found Zaytuna College, the nation’s first four-year Muslim liberal-arts institution.

Embodying an American story if ever there was one—including proverbial bootstraps, military service, political activism, and deep religious commitment—Zaid Shakir draws young Muslims to himself because his message of social justice in the face of poverty and racism he has known first hand makes him endlessly and, it often seems, effortlessly relevant. He is as approachable a man as I’ve ever met; tall and somewhat too lean—he fasts one day per week—he’s all wingspan when embracing his followers at the mosque. To them he says, “Islam is calling us to be bigger than what the world has made us.” And they see in him—whether in his tirelessness, his intelligence, or his fire—a model.

His students call him Superman. When I first heard him preach in Oakland, not far from the new college in Berkeley, he faced what he called a “humble gathering ... representing 30 or 40 different ethnicities and national origin.” To them he issued the charge: “We have to raise our voices, we have to present our example, and we have to institutionalize our example. We have to develop institutions that reflect our diversity. We have to develop institutions that bring all of this potential power ... of these people, coming with all of their collective experience, all of their collective spiritual and emotional energy, all of their collective histories ... and say, ‘This is how we can live in this country.’”

Like Imam Siraj’s Brooklyn mosque, Zaytuna College is one of those places where Muslims come together to learn how to live in this country. With a reputation for classical Islamic scholarship and community building dating back to 1996, when Sheik Hamza established the Zaytuna Institute and began his public life, the founders see the college in historic terms and as an essential part of the nation’s religious fabric. Speakers at Zaytuna’s inaugural convocation in August 2010 included Virginia Gray Henry, a descendent of Patrick Henry; the keynote speaker was the Jesuit-trained president of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, the ethicist James A. Donahue. His address highlighted the work ahead for Zaytuna, as the school incorporates into its mission the value American democracy places on rights and liberties, pluralism, pragmatism, democratic justice, and creative novelty. “Zaytuna,” he said, “is an academic institution—a college. It is not a mosque; it is not a community center; it is not a gathering space for religious rituals; it is not a cultural center—although elements of each of these will surely be part of Zaytuna. The challenge for Zaytuna will be to determine in what ways it will serve the Islamic tradition and how it can enable that tradition both to preserve and grow.”

Sheik Hamza Yusuf, perhaps the most influential Muslim scholar in the country, praised Donahue for his remarks and drew connections between the challenges to founding Muslim institutions and the struggle Catholics faced to establish themselves in this country. About Virginia Gray Henry, he said, “I think it’s auspicious—and I don’t say this lightly—that a direct descendant of Patrick Henry is here with us in this convocation. ... What’s happening here today is part of the American Revolution.” And with a nod to the Prophet Mohammed in what appeared to be a Freudian slip, Sheik Hamza added, “What was articulated in starting this revelation—revolution—was ‘Give me liberty or give me death.’”

What makes the appearance of these three scholars on the secret NYPD document a “teachable moment,” as Sheik Hamza sees it—and so do I—has only partly to do with the enormous appeal of these teachers in their communities, especially among the young. Given the NYPD’s interest in them in the wake of September 11, 2001—an interest Sheik Hamza, for instance, understands and sympathizes with—what’s perhaps most important to grasp is that these hugely popular and widely influential Muslim leaders have time and again preached an anti-extremist message. “Islam doesn’t teach anarchy,” Imam Siraj declared on the stand when called to testify during a terrorism case in March 2001, “and people cannot take it upon themselves when they don’t like something, even though something seems to be unjust, to get up and do that kind of violence.” As for the NYPD, Sheik Hamza has said, we can’t simply fault them—“that’s too easy.” From his perspective, “It’s not us against the police. ... If those MSA-goers have an emergency, they’re still going to call 911.” We need the police. They just need to know that we don’t need them spying on peaceful, patriotic American Muslims.

Sheik Hamza recently told me: “I have never advocated violence, never supported suicide. ... Those things are antithetical to everything that attracted me to Islam.” And last September 10, Sheik Hamza and Imam Siraj gathered with a host of other leaders at a convention organized by Imam Zaid called “United for Change: One Nation, One Destiny.” The event brought together Muslim activists and scholars from across the political and theological spectrum, a Jewish community organizer named Anya Cordell, and the former Catholic nun, Karen Armstrong, who concluded the event by presenting her “Charter for Compassion.” In a single voice, everyone in attendance condemned violent Islamic extremism. On September 11 we saw not Islam, but what they all agreed was “a cult of death.”

Three of the nation’s most relevant and influential Muslim leaders—Imam Siraj Wahhaj, Imam Zaid Shakir, and Sheik Hamza Yusuf—may criticize American foreign policy, especially in the Middle East; they may preach to the crowds gathered at Occupy Oakland and condemn the corruption in American markets and in American law enforcement. But then, public dissent is an American art. Indeed, the heroes these men call upon are just as often a Founding Father or a literary giant like Henry David Thoreau as they are a Muslim leader like Malcolm X.

These Muslims, like Malcolm, are Americans. This is the land they’ve always called home. They’re building a tradition here that, against all apparent odds, they’d like to see last. And if they have a secret message, it’s this: To those who don’t like America, or who don’t want to be here, or who wish to do harm in our neighborhoods, it’s time for you to leave.

To view this this reprint article written by Scott Korb go to: The Chronicle of Higher Learning: http://chronicle.com/article/American-Islam/131154/ He teaches writing at New York University and the New School.

March 8, 2012 has been designated as International Women’s Day. The day has been set aside to celebrate the social, economic and political accomplishments of women. March is a most appropriate month for such a celebration. In the Northern Hemisphere, March signals the arrival of spring and the blossoming flowers whose colors and fragrances announce the rebirth of the land. Women, like the flowers of spring, adorn our lives and have been chosen by Almighty God to deliver into the world the young souls whose presence marks the regeneration of our human family.

Usually, when western Muslims speak of women and Islam, we speak of the rights and opportunities Islam afforded women in the economic, social and political realms long before similar developments occurred in Christendom. There is nothing wrong with such a narrative and it helps to normalize Islam to people in the west, both converts and others who are seeking to better understand a sometimes controversial world religion.

Hence, we will begin by mentioning some famous Muslim women, whose exploits reflect the lofty social status Islam afforded to women. The accomplishments of women among the Companions of the Prophet, in this regard, are well-known. Khadija’s financial and moral support to the Prophet and his mission were critical to the success of the fledgling Muslim community. Aisha’s learning and leadership gave her a standing in the early community that rivals that of her male contemporaries. Umm Salama’s wisdom and decisiveness broke the impasse that confronted the believers at Hudaybiya. Nusayba’s heroic defense of the Prophet, peace upon him, during the height of the Battle of Uhad, is legendary. Hafsa, the daughter of Umar bin al-Khattab, at the time of her father’s death, was entrusted with the protection of the standardized rendition of the Qur’an, considered by some to have been the greatest trust ever vouchsafed to anyone in the history of the Muslim community.

The erudition, wisdom, courage and vision of these and many other women among the Companions of the Prophet has lived on in the lives of successive generations of Muslim women.  For example, Amra bint Abdul Rahman, a jurist, mufti and hadith scholar was one the greatest scholars of the second generation of Muslims. The Umayyad Caliph, Umar bin Abdul Aziz, a great scholar in his own right, said, “No one remains alive who is more learned in the Hadith of Aisha than Amra.” She was highly praised by al-Zuhri, Yahya bin Ma’in, ibn Madini, Ibn Hibban and many others who recognized her erudition, especially in the area of hadith.

Amra exemplified a tradition of scholarly excellence among women, which continued throughout the centuries. During the 8th Hijri Century, there appeared a great scholar in Damascus whose lessons would draw students from all over the Muslim world. Aisha bint Muhammad bin Abdul Hadi was known to have possessed the shortest chain of narration back to the Prophet, peace upon him, of any scholar alive during her time. Among her students was Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, considered the greatest of all latter-day Hadith scholars. He is reported to have read dozens of books with her and to have received the Hadith of Mercy (al-Musalsal b’il Awwaliyya) from her.

Other women were known for their great linguistic prowess. In more recent times, we can mention the example of Aisha Ismat bint Isma’il Taymur, who passed away in Egypt in 1902. Educated in both the linguistic and religious sciences, she became one of the leading literary figures of her time. A master of Arabic, Turkish and Persian, she embodied the Egyptian-Ottoman culture that dominated Egyptian intellectual life during the latter half of the 19th Century. She published lengthy collections of poetry in Arabic and Turkish, wrote for many of the leading literary magazines of her day and was a staunch advocate for female education. Although she was not known for her religious poetry, she was known to be a woman of great piety.

As Muslims, we cannot limit our appreciation of women to their social, economic and political accomplishments. Many women throughout the history of our community are famous for their devotional acts and the high spiritual stations they attained. Rabia al-Adawiyya is well-known in this regard, however, there are many others who are largely unknown. One such woman is well-known by name, but most Muslims know very little about her life. She is Sayyida Nafisa. The daughter of al-Hasan bin Zayd bin al-Hasan bin Ali bin Abi Talib, she was born in Mecca in 145 AH. She grew up in Medina, but spent her later years in Egypt where she is buried.

Sayyida Nafisa was a scholar of repute, having memorized the Qur’an and mastered the exegetical sciences. It is said that Imam al-Shafi’i, whom she greatly respected, studied hadith with her after his arrival in Egypt. She was most known for her devotion and piety. She fasted perpetually, prayed the entirety of the night, constantly recited the Qur’an and frequently wept out of fear and longing for God. She performed thirty pilgrimages to Mecca. She was also blessed with considerable wealth and spent freely on the sick, poor and downtrodden. She was also a financial supporter of Imam Shafi’i during his time in Egypt.

Sayyida Nafisa was associated with many great blessings. Once, she was left to care for the invalid daughter of her Christian neighbors who left their house to go to the marketplace. When she saw the bedridden child she began fervently praying for her cure. No sooner had she finished her prayer did the young girl regain the use of her limbs and was able to walk to the door to greet her parents upon their return. The entire family then became Muslims.

At the end of her life she fell ill. Her attendants beseeched her to cease fasting for the sake of her health. She replied, “For thirty years I have fasted asking Allah that I meet Him while I am fasting. Am I to break my fast now [while I am close to the meeting]? Never!” She recited Sura al-An’am during the still of that night until she reached the verse, “They will have the Abode of Peace in the presence of their Lord, while He is their loving protector, because of the righteous deeds they used to do (6:127).” She then uttered the Testimony of Faith and quietly passed away.

As we celebrate International Women’s day let us celebrate this aspect of femininity. Islam certainly advocates for a balanced social order where there is space for the contributions of men and women. However, its primary purpose is to prepare human beings to succeed when we meet our Lord. Ultimately, we are living for the Hereafter, not this world.

In this regard, as we strive to accomplish the worldly objectives demanded by our social, economic and political situations, let us never forget that there are overarching otherworldly objectives that we should never lose sight of. Let us celebrate the likes of Sayyida Nafisa and other great women who reminded us so powerfully of those otherworldly objectives. Let us further consider that perhaps the best way we can celebrate their lives is to aspire to live as they lived.

Reprinted from EMEL Magazine:  http://emel.com/article?id=95&a_id=2640&c=94