Has America Become an Islamic Country?

In the annual congress of the Center for the Study of Islam & Democracy (CSID), held in Washington D.C., earlier in May, the dinner’s two outstanding speakers were Minnesota’s Democratic Senator, Keith Ellison, and the foreign minister of the Maldive Islands, Dr. Ahmed Shahid.

This Center was established ten years ago by Dr. Radwan Masmoudi, the American-Tunisian who started his career as a robotics’ engineer after he graduated from the most famous technological university in the world: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was regarded as a pioneer, with many great achievements in this new field.

However, and after the end of the Cold War (1990), the West in general and US in particular harped on the theme of “finding a new enemy”. This theme took an academic tone when the American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington released a study entitled: “The clash of civilizations”. He claimed that Islam and Muslims are the potential candidates to clash with Christian Western civilization, mainly because Islamic culture refuses the freedom of intellect, expression and other basic freedoms. This, according to Huntington, explains the rarity of democratic governments in Islamic countries.

Actually, these opinions and views were a source of worry for many Muslims, including Dr. Radwan Masmoudi. And because he was an engineering scientist, he decided to translate this concern into organized research program. So, he put aside robotics and established the CSID, not only to examine Huntington’s theory about the clash of civilizations but also to study the basics of Islam as known by modern Muslims, starting from Indonesia and ending with Morocco.

The new Center never aimed at “apologizing,” “justification” or “tribal defense”. Rather, its goal was to know how modern Muslims understand their religion and how Islam regards the values of freedom, equality, respect of the other; and the involvement in society and state affairs, which are the pillars of democracy in the West and the entire world. And even if there are not texts in the Holy Quran or Sunnah of prophet Muhammad, explicitly or implicitly tackling the respect of these values and behaviors, is this supposed to mean there is any contradiction between the Quran or Sunnah and these values?

These are what the CSID clarifies, in addition to supporting and spreading these values in the most peaceful possible way.

Now back to the congress where the general discussion was how to improve relationships between US and Muslims. Here, the speech Senator Keith Ellison gave was of the utmost importance. These are its main points:

1. The chance to have good American-Islamic relationships is already on the horizon after Barack Obama’s election as president of the USA. This is the man who reiterated in his inaugural speech, and then in his interview with Al Arabia TV station, three weeks after inauguration, that he extends his open hands to the Islamic world so that both can enjoy friendly relationships, respect and mutual interests as well.

2. All this talk about America’s relationships with the Islamic world undeniably indicates how America will become a part of the Islamic world. This is especially evident now, when the number of American Muslims exceeds six million. This is more than the entire population of the 11 countries which are members of the organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), the same organization which must call America to join (and here, the hall was swept by thunderous applause).

3. Muslims should not wait for America or Obama to achieve their goals, especially if the cause of Palestine is the only thing that can prompt their participation. Moreover, their regimes may demand something other than what the people are asking for. Obama, like any other politician, will only respond to the demands of an organized lobby, countering first with “make me do it,” before fulfilling their requests.

4. Even with the issue of consensus, that of Palestine, everyone should know that the only way out will be the disengagement of the two states – Israel and Palestine – according to the suggestions of Clinton, then Bush, and what is to be drafted by Obama on the same principal bases.

5. Ellison and some other senators went to Gaza after the Israeli aggressions and saw how savage the havoc had become. As a result, they assigned some hundreds of millions of dollars to rehabilitate Gaza, teach its children and create job opportunities for its youth. They all agreed that everyone, including Israel, Egypt, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and Hamas, must help. Besides, Egypt and Israel ought to open crossing points on both sides.

6. Arabs and Muslims must start with themselves if they want others to believe in their just cause. Here, Ellison exemplifies the matter of Darfur, in which most Arab and Islamic regimes gave thumbs up to the attitude of the Sudanese president, Omar Al Bashir, at the expense of a part the Sudanese people in Darfur (western Sudan). This was in spite of their knowing, like the rest of the world, of the killing, starvation and displacement wreaked on Darfur’s people, and that all this has been documented by international and local human rights organizations.

7. What Ellison, with a group of Senators, did in Gaza after the war, was done again after a field visit to Darfur. Five of them demonstrated before the Sudanese embassy in Washington and intentionally penetrated the security cordon. As a result, they were led to the police station where they were detained for several hours and never thought of using their immunity. And in the police station, they were treated as law violators, although their behavior, learned from the examples of the Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi in the 40’s, and Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 60’s, was nothing but civil disobedience.

8. And at the end, the Muslim black American Senator concluded by wondering if anyone among the 300 million Arabs and one billion and a half Muslims sympathized with Darfur!

Indeed, most of Muslim and Arab attendants left the hall, filled with shame because if this had been said by any Senator or American citizen other than Keith Ellison, we would have had misgivings about him. But this man was the first black Muslim to enter the Congress, even before Barack Obama. And he was the first Senator who insisted upon taking oath on the Holy Quran. At that time the Congress’s secretariat searched for a copy and found one which was, to the surprise of everyone, the personal copy of the third American president, Thomas Jefferson.

Since this time, the Quran joined the Torah and the Bible in the Congress’s secretariat, so that future Muslim Senators shall be able to take the oath. And indeed, three Muslim Senators have joined Keith Ellison in the Congress.

Finally, was Keith Ellison right in describing his country as an Islamic country? Does this satisfy those who always wished Americans to jointly and separately embrace Islam?

Who knows?!