Progress, but unfinished, particularly with respect to Shia and Sufi Muslim minorities. During my time in Saudi Arabia in the 1980s, I sometimes heard Shia being referred to as “unclean”:
Saudi Arabia has taken important steps to purge its school religion textbooks of hateful and intolerant language, but the current texts maintain language that disparages practices associated with religious minorities, Human Rights Watch said today.
A comprehensive Human Rights Watch review of Education Ministry-produced textbooks for the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years found that some practices associated with the Shia and Sufi Islamic traditions remain stigmatized as un-Islamic and prohibited. The curriculum, entitled Monotheism (Tawhid), is a mandatory subject for the primary, middle, and secondary education levels. Human Rights Watch did not review additional religion texts dealing with Islamic law, Islamic culture, Islamic commentary, or Qur’an recitation.
“Saudi Arabia’s glacial progress on textbook reform appears to have finally picked up steam in recent years,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “But as long as the texts continue to disparage religious beliefs and practices of minority groups, including those of fellow Saudi citizens, it will contribute to the culture of discrimination that these groups face.”
In 2017, Human Rights Watch conducted a comprehensive review of the religious curriculum and found numerous harsh critiques of practices associated with Shia and Sufi Islam, as well as intolerant and degrading language about Christianity and Judaism. Human Rights Watch found that the curriculum does not make direct reference to Shia Islam or use derogatory terms. Instead, the texts harshly criticize practices and traditions closely associated with Shia Islam in broad terms, in many cases labeling them evidence of polytheism (shirk) that will result in removal from Islam and eternal damnation for those who practice them.
Saudi activists and experts Human Rights Watch consulted said that Saudi students would immediately understand the targets of the criticism in these texts as Shia beliefs and practices even though the texts do not use the word Shia, though some of the criticisms would apply equally to Sufi religious practices.
Human Rights Watch was unable to access the online versions of the textbooks available through the Saudi Education Ministry’s website. Instead, the curriculum was found on Saudi websites that host copies of the official texts. These textbooks were cross-checked between the different websites to ensure their authenticity. Only the first semester of the 2020-2021curriculum was available online at the time of the review. The 2019-2020 curriculum was used in reviewing the second semester textbooks.
Between 2017 and 2020, the Education Ministry made numerous changes to the texts in response to years of criticism by US authorities, including a draft law circulated in the US Congress that would require the secretary of state to report annually to Congress about whether Saudi Arabia had removed “intolerant” content from its textbooks.
These changes, however, have been mostly limited to how other religions or groups are presented in the textbooks, including eliminating hateful reference to Christians, Jews, and LGBT people, as well as removing violent and anti-Semitic language. IMPACT-se, an Israeli organization monitors cultural tolerance in schools globally, also reviewed the newest available editions of the texts and noted that even though some problematic references remain, the removal of many examples is “a significant improvement and an encouraging development, understood as representing a step toward moderation.”
More explicit references that targeted Shia Islam have been minimized, but much of the implicit language remains. For example, the textbooks continue to label some practices and traditions associated with Shia and Sufi Islam as evidence of polytheism (shirk), which is penalized by cancellation of a person’s good deeds, God’s rejection of their repentance, and eternal damnation, the fourth-grade (age 9) second semester book says. The new textbooks now refer to those who perform these practices explicitly as polytheists (mushreekin), instead of the former label of unbelievers (kuffar). That term is now used explicitly in the textbooks for non-believers.
Practices that qualify as polytheism (shirk) include visiting graves of prominent religious figures, and the act of intercession (tawassul), by which Shia and Sufis supplicate to God via intermediaries. The text condemns “supplication,” a thinly veiled reference to the Shia practice of intercession (tawassul), including supplication to “the righteous,” “the dead,” or at “graves” and “shrines.” For example, the fourth grade second semester book cites several examples of polytheism (shirk), the first of which is supplication to the dead (see figure below).
Fourth-Grade (Age 9), Second Semester Textbook, pg 31.
Photos of sacred Shia shrines and graves were also removed from the texts reviewed, as well as several mentions of Hussein, the prophet’s grandson, and a sacred figure for Shia. The second semester of the fourth-grade textbook forbids swearing by anyone other than God and lists Hussein as an example, though.
The first semester fourth-grade textbook defines four core corners of monotheism; not seeking help from anyone other than God, not seeking refuge from anyone other than God, not to perform a pilgrimage to anyone other than God, and not kneeling to anyone other than God.
The textbooks label certain practices as “illicit innovations” (bida’), which the authors consider a form of polytheism (shirk). These include performing a pilgrimage or kneeling to anyone other than God, and building mosques and shrines on top of graves clear examples of Shia/Sufi practices. The second semester of the seventh-grade (age 12) textbook includes an entire lesson on why visiting graves is considered polytheism (shirk) and says that a curse will fall upon those who treat graves like mosques (see graphic below).
Seventh-Grade, Second Semester Textbook, pg 25.
The practice of wailing over the dead is labelled in the textbooks as a form of blasphemy in the first semester sixth-grade textbook. Wailing is closely associated with Shia flagellation and mourning rituals around the commemoration of the martyrdom of Hussein known as Ashoura during the first month of the Islamic calendar.
The religion textbooks also continue to identify themselves with Sunni Islam (Ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jam’a). In 2017, Human Rights Watch noted a reference in the first textbook of the secondary level curriculum (age 15) that contended that Sunni Islam has received the “best” of that afforded to the nation of the prophet Mohammad, because “they represent the true Islam, both in theory and practice.” This statement is still included in the latest reviewed version of the texts (see figure below).
Secondary Program, Level One (Age 15), pg 33.
Moreover, the texts warn against the “exaggeration” (al-ghulu fi) with regards to members of the prophet’s family, which would be considered a form of polytheism (shirk). This is a direct reference to the Shia belief that the prophet’s cousin and son-in-law, Ali, and his grandsons Hassan and Hussein are sacred. The seventh-grade second semester textbook warns that praying to any member of the prophet’s family or asking for their help during difficult times, is a form of “exaggeration with regard to the family of the prophet or raising them over their [rightful] place that God gave them is one of the causes of polytheism [shirk]”. (see figure below).
Seventh-Grade, Second Semester Textbook, pg 18.
A Saudi lawyer from the Shia-majority Eastern Province told Human Rights Watch that all Muslims in Saudi Arabia, regardless of their denomination, are required to use this curriculum even if they find it personally offensive. Any signs of protest lead to a reduction of the student’s grades. Additionally, the lawyer said that the propagation of the idea that Shia and Sufi Muslims are polytheists (mushreekin) could make them vulnerable to harassment or even violence.
With few exceptions Saudi Arabia does not tolerate public worship by adherents of religions other than Islam and systematically discriminates against Muslim religious minorities, notably Twelver Shia and Ismailis, including in public education, the justice system, religious freedom, and employment. On April 23, 2019, Saudi Arabia carried out a mass execution of 37 men in various parts of the country. At least 33 of those executed were from the country’s minority Shia community. They had been convicted following unfair trials for various alleged crimes, including protest-related offenses, espionage, and terrorism.
“Saudi Arabia has made progress but it is not time to declare victory on textbook reform”, Page said. “As long as disparaging references to religious minorities remain in the text it will continue to stoke controversy and condemnation.”
Adopted last month by the French Council of the Muslim Faith at the behest of President Emmanuel Macron, a new 10-point “Charter of Principles” of French Islam will please all those who have been calling for a “progressive,”“reformed” or “enlightened”Islam – one consistent with democratic, egalitarian and liberal western values.
It also represents a significant personal victory for Macron, who for months had pressured the council to craft a document committing to a “French Republican Islam”. Non-Muslim authorities, governments, media and public intellectuals have been demanding this for years as a way to combat “Islamism” and “extremism”.
It very clearly aims to turn Islam into a quietist, ‘pacified’ religion whose practitioners remain docile and obedient to the political powers-that-be
The unprecedented charter can thus be seen as a clear assertion that Islam is indeed compatible with secular democracies in general, and with the French republic in particular. In a nutshell, the charter aligns Islam with France’s republican principles, including gender equality; non-discrimination, including sexual orientation; and freedom of conscience, including the freedom to leave Islam.
It condemns “excessive proselytism” and attests to the superiority of and obligation for all Muslims to recognise France’s laws, constitution, republican principles and “public order”.
Article two proclaims an obligation for Muslims to “conform to the common rules” of France, which “must prevail over any other rules and convictions, including those of our own faith”. Article eight recognises the French principle of laicite, or secularism.
But article six, the longest, is also the most loaded. It proclaims that no mosques or other Islamic places can have “political agendas” or engage in political and ideological discourse or activity; these are described as “an instrumentalisation” and “perversion of Islam”, whose sole and “true purpose is prayers and the transmission of values”.
It condemns “the propagation of nationalist discourses defending foreign regimes and supporting foreign policies that are hostile to France, our country”. It dissociates Islam from “political Islam” and prohibits signatories from engaging in the latter, including “Salafism (Wahhabism), the Tabligh and the Muslim Brotherhood”. This amounts to an excommunication of those Islamic trends and movements from legitimate or “true” Islam.
Crafted by the executive
There is no doubt that this charter was essentially crafted by the French executive itself – especially Macron and Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who for years had been calling for the assimilation of Islam strictly within the limits, laws, principles and frameworks of France’s Fifth Republic. Darmanin even wrote a book about it.
The charter is not coming from Muslims. It is the brainchild of Macron’s campaign to force the French Muslim council to craft such a text, deploying against one religion a type of pressure, intimidation, threats, ultimatums and blackmail never before seen in French post-war history.
At the end of the signing ceremony, a close adviser to Macron explicitly threatened anyone who refuses to sign and live by the charter, saying: “Those who disagree will hear from us very quickly and see their operations inspected very, very closely by our services.” This, in a context where the interior ministry is banning Islamic NGOs, closing schools and shutting down mosques by the dozen.
This operation is an integral part of Macron’s crusade against “Islamist separatism”, for which he is using the French Council of the Muslim Faith as a facade, an alibi, a cover to circumvent a constitution that forbids state interference in religious doctrines. The charter is a word-for-word synthesis of all the injunctions and demands that Macron has addressed to Muslims over the past year.
Amazingly, article nine not only declares that state racism does not exist, but also that such an expression would constitute “defamation, and as such, a crime”. Its timing coincides with the introduction of Macron’s anti-separatism bill, and the Elysee Palace has stated that the charter was drafted within the framework of “technical workshops” presided over by the interior minister.
What are we to make of this operation? Firstly, it is an attempt, which some may find timely and even necessary, to align Islamic theology with the values, laws and principles of liberal, secular western states.
Secondly, it very clearly aims to turn Islam into a quietist, “pacified” religion whose practitioners remain docile and obedient to the political powers-that-be. Macron is trying to strip Muslims of their right to engage in oppositional and critical discourse and activism.
Thirdly, this hostile takeover is an attempt by the executive to assume control over the totality of Islam in France in order to “securitise” it from A to Z: its mosques, imams, institutions, NGOs, associations – even its theology. One should also expect that the repression and persecution of any Muslim deemed “Islamist” or “Salafist” will only get worse.
Fourthly, besides the extreme violations of freedom of religion and the brutalisation of Islam, the charter is also a glaring violation of French laicite – a principle the Macron government nonetheless claims to uphold. Based on the 1905 law on the separation of church and state, French laicite includes three sacred principles that are not open to interpretation: freedom of conscience and religion, the separation of church and state, and equal treatment by the state of all religions. Macron is trampling on all three pillars.
Uncertain fate
Only Muslims, and no other religions, are being summoned to craft a “charter” and implement principles such as gender equality, acceptance of homosexuality, and the prohibition of political discourse and activity. How about requiring the same from Catholics and Jews, some of whom oppose French laws on same-sex marriage or medically assisted procreation?
The attempt to delegitimise as “political Islam” and exclude from the religion several important Islamic trends under false pretexts, along with the persecution to which these Muslim groups are increasingly subjected, represents extreme violations of freedom of religion and human rights in general.
France has finally found its grand mufti: its (non-Muslim) president himself
The direct attempt by the executive to shape from above the organisation of Islam and its theology is by far the worst violation of the separation of church and state in the entire history of the Fifth Republic. It marks the end of French laicite and a regression to a crude form of quasi-medieval Gallicanism, when the state controlled, organised and narrowly defined religion.
The fate of the charter is more than a little uncertain. It will surely be weaponised, including as a divide-and-conquer tool. In the meantime, France has finally found its grand mufti: its (non-Muslim) president himself.
Parallel between this call and the similar call re Mel Gibson’s 2004 file The Passion of Christ. I remember similar controversies over Martin Scorcese’s 1988, The Last Temptation of Christ, and the appropriateness of the portrayal. The different element is the fear of increased Sunni Shia tensions:
Paksitani authorities banned Jan. 5 the release of the controversial British film “The Lady of Heaven.” They urged social media platforms to remove the trailer of the film.
The Pakistani ban has raised controversy in Egypt about this film. Similar to the Pakistani reaction, a number of social media activists, Al-Azhar scholars and sheikhs of the Salafist currents called for banning the screening of the film. They urged the issuance of fatwas prohibiting its viewing and sent official demands to the United Kingdom to stop showing it worldwide.
The film sparked controversy due to its portrayal of the character of Fatima al-Zahra, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad and wife of Ali bin Abi Talib, the fourth and last of the rightly guided caliphs following the death of the prophet. On Jan. 2, several Egyptian and international newspapers reported that the film features the voice of the Prophet Muhammad as one of the storytellers of the film’s events.
Commenting on one of the news reports criticizing the film, Facebook user Ahmad Allam wrote, “They do not respect our faith or our sanctities, and when we get angry [and defend] our religion and our Messenger, they say we are terrorists.” Omar Hindawi wrote, “This film should be immediately banned,” while Mona Mahmoud wondered about Al-Azhar’s position on “this humiliation?”
Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam’s highest religious authority, issued a press statement Dec. 27 through its adviser Mohammed Mehanna, confirming the steadfastness of Al-Azhar’s position regarding the prohibition of the embodiment of the Prophet Muhammad, all prophets and the family members of the prophet (wives, daughters and sons). The statement asserted that the release of this film consecrates the continued disrespect by the West and some Shiite extremists for the sanctities and beliefs of others.
Al-Azhar, however, did not announce any measures to try to ban the screening of the film, as demanded by social media activists.
Inquiring about the possibilities of banning the film in Egypt or launching any media campaigns to prevent it from showing in Egypt or abroad, Al-Monitor talked to a source in the Al-Azhar Sheikhdom. “Al-Azhar is not an authority that can ban or permit a film,” the source said on condition of anonymity. “It simply expresses the Sharia opinion regarding the prohibition of embodying the prophet and his family members. Al-Azhar leaders are not concerned with efforts to ban the film abroad and has nothing to do with the delay in its release.”
The film, directed by Elli King and written by Sheikh Yasser Al-Habib, was to be released in theaters Dec. 30, before it was postponed until 2021. No new date was scheduled for its release and the reasons for its postponement have not been disclosed. But some newspapers reckoned the delay came in light of the sharp criticism the film generated or because of the coronavirus pandemic.
A source from the Ministry of Culture told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that the Authority for Censorship of Artistic Works affiliated with the ministry is the authority competent to ban or allow the screening of a film when its distributors apply for a request for its release in Egypt. The source explained that the authority cannot decide to ban a film before watching it, adding that the opinion of Al-Azhar and religious institutions on the embodiment of the prophet will be taken into account in addition to the opinions of scholars, if the film falsely depicts or distorts established historical facts.
The Authority for Censorship of Artistic Works had banned the screening of “The Passion of the Christ” in 2004, and “Noah” and “The Exodus; Gods and Kings” in 2014, because they portray the characters of the prophets.
Several Egyptian newspapers, notably Soutalomma and Al-Wafd, accused in press reports Dec. 31 the film and its producers of Shiism and bias toward false stories about Zahra’s death. They said that the teaser of the film shows she was subjected to torture and physical assault causing her to have an abortion and to die at the hands of the Rightly Guided Caliphs who preceded Ali, namely Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, Omar bin Al-Khattab and Othman bin Affan.
But renowned film critic and writer of Arab cinema Tarek el-Shinnawy believes banning the film will create unnecessary momentum and buzz that may encourage Egyptians to watch it out of curiosity. “Sooner or later everyone will be able to watch it when it becomes available on the internet. It is better to allow its screening while holding, in tandem, historical and religious discussions to unveil its fallacies if it truly tells a historically questionable story.”
The film’s events take place in two different times separated by nearly 1,400 years. It tells the story of an Iraqi child who lost his parents and was displaced by an armed Islamic State attack. The boy then moves to live with his grandmother, who tells him the story of Zahra, the first victim of terrorism in history from the Shiite perspective. The film then recounts the story of Zahra.
Mohsen Qandil, a professor of Islamic history at Cairo University shares Shinnawi’s opinion. “Any serious discussion about the film would reveal the weakness of the Shiite narrative that contradicts the friendly relationship that Imam Ali had with the Rightly Guided Caliphs who preceded him, even after Zahra’s death. Imam Ali agreed to marry his daughter, Umm Kulthum, to Omar bin Al-Khattab and recommended him [bin Al-Khattab] as his successor.”
He added, “How can bin Khattab be one of Zahra’s killers, while he was on good terms with Imam Ali, her husband, after her death.”
Despite the film being accused of Shiism and promoting false or weak historical narratives, Iranian websites Ijtihad and Al-Alam reported that four Shiite religious authorities — Ayatollah Lotfollah Safi Golpaygan, Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi, Ayatollah Hossein Noori-Hamedani and Ayatollah Jaafar Subhani — labeled as haram any support or promotion for the film. The fatwas banned viewing it since it deepens the disagreement in the Islamic nation between Sunnis and Shiites. The Shiite authorities argued that fanning the flames of the inter-Muslim dispute is in the interest of those they described as the “enemies of Islam.”
Mohamed Abdel Halim, an Egyptian journalist specializing in religious affairs at the London-based news website Daqaeq, told Al-Monitor that showing the film at this time while Lebanon, Syria and Iraq are witnessing divisions between Sunnis and Shiites will exacerbate existing differences.
“In case this film is shown, Al-Azhar will be forced to refute the Shiite historical allegations. Al-Azhar has always tried to ignore these allegations so as not to worsen the division between Sunnis and Shiites,” Abdel Halim said. “This will abort the sheikhdom’s attempts for decades to achieve rapprochement and focus on what unites Sunnis and Shiites instead of focusing on points of contention, including the historical allegations about Zahra.”
Sigh over those who interpret these vaccines as being haram compared to the majority consensus:
In October, Indonesian diplomats and Muslim clerics stepped off a plane in China. While the diplomats were there to finalize deals to ensure millions of doses reached Indonesian citizens, the clerics had a much different concern: Whether the COVID-19 vaccine was permissible for use under Islamic law.
As companies race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine and countries scramble to secure doses, questions about the use of pork products — banned by some religious groups — has raised concerns about the possibility of disrupted immunization campaigns.
Pork-derived gelatin has been widely used as a stabilizer to ensure vaccines remain safe and effective during storage and transport. Some companies have worked for years to develop pork-free vaccines: Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis has produced a pork-free meningitis vaccine, while Saudi- and Malaysia-based AJ Pharma is currently working on one of their own.
But demand, existing supply chains, cost and the shorter shelf life of vaccines not containing porcine gelatin means the ingredient is likely to continue to be used in a majority of vaccines for years, said Dr. Salman Waqar, general secretary of the British Islamic Medical Association.
Spokespeople for Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca have said that pork products are not part of their COVID-19 vaccines. But limited supply and preexisting deals worth millions of dollars with other companies means that some countries with large Muslim populations, such as Indonesia, will receive vaccines that have not yet been certified to be gelatin-free.
This presents a dilemma for religious communities, including Orthodox Jews and Muslims, where the consumption of pork products is deemed religiously unclean, and how the ban is applied to medicine, he said.
“There’s a difference of opinion amongst Islamic scholars as to whether you take something like pork gelatin and make it undergo a rigorous chemical transformation,” Waqar said. “Is that still considered to be religiously impure for you to take?”
The majority consensus from past debates over pork gelatin use in vaccines is that it is permissible under Islamic law, as “greater harm” would occur if the vaccines weren’t used, said Dr. Harunor Rashid, an associate professor at the University of Sydney.
There’s a similar assessment by a broad consensus of religious leaders in the Orthodox Jewish community as well.
“According to the Jewish law, the prohibition on eating pork or using pork is only forbidden when it’s a natural way of eating it,” said Rabbi David Stav, chairman of Tzohar, a rabbinical organization in Israel.
If “it’s injected into the body, not (eaten) through the mouth,” then there is “no prohibition and no problem, especially when we are concerned about sicknesses,” he said.
Yet there have been dissenting opinions on the issue — some with serious health consequences for Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population, some 225 million.
In 2018, the Indonesian Ulema Council, the Muslim clerical body that issues certifications that a product is halal, or permissible under Islamic law, decreed that the measles and rubella vaccines were “haram,” or unlawful, because of the gelatin. Religious and community leaders began to urge parents to not allow their children to be vaccinated.
“Measles cases subsequently spiked, giving Indonesia the third-highest rate of measles in the world,” said Rachel Howard, director of the health care market research group Research Partnership.
A decree was later issued by the Muslim clerical body saying it was permissible to receive the vaccine, but cultural taboos still led to continued low vaccination rates, Howard said.
“Our studies have found that some Muslims in Indonesia feel uncomfortable with accepting vaccinations containing these ingredients,” even when the Muslim authority issues guidelines saying they are permitted, she said.
Governments have taken steps to address the issue. In Malaysia, where the halal status of vaccines has been identified as the biggest issueamong Muslim parents, stricter laws have been enacted so that parents must vaccinate their children or face fines and jail time. In Pakistan, where there has been waning vaccine confidencefor religious and political reasons, parents have been jailed for refusing to vaccinate their children against polio.
But with rising vaccine hesitancy and misinformation spreading around the globe, including in religious communities, Rashid said community engagement is “absolutely necessary.”
“It could be disastrous,” if there is not strong community engagement from governments and health care workers, he said.
In Indonesia, the government has already said it will include the Muslim clerical body in the COVID-19 vaccine procurement and certification process.
“Public communication regarding the halal status, price, quality and distribution must be well-prepared,” Indonesian President Joko Widodo said in October.
While they were in China in the fall, the Indonesian clerics inspected China’s Sinovac Biotech facilities, and clinical trials involving some 1,620 volunteers are also underway in Indonesia for the company’s vaccine. The government has announced several COVID-19 vaccine procurement deals with the company totaling millions of doses.
Sinovac Biotech, as well as Chinese companies Sinopharm and CanSino Biologics — which all have COVID-19 vaccines in late-stage clinical trials and deals selling millions of doses around the world — did not respond to Associated Press requests for ingredient information.
In China, none of the COVID-19 vaccines has been granted final market approval, but more than 1 million health care workers and others who have been deemed at high risk of infection have received vaccines under emergency use permission. The companies have yet to disclose how effective the vaccines are or possible side effects.
Pakistan is late-stage clinical trials of the CanSino Biologics vaccine. Bangladesh previously had an agreement with Sinovac Biotech to conduct clinical trials in the country, but the trials have been delayed due to a funding dispute. Both countries have some of the largest Muslim populations in the world.
While health care workers on the ground in Indonesia are still largely engaged in efforts to contain the virus as numbers continue to surge, Waqar said government efforts to reassure Indonesians will be key to a successful immunization campaign as COVID-19 vaccines are approved for use.
But, he said, companies producing the vaccines must also be part of such community outreach.
“The more they are transparent, the more they are open and honest about their product, the more likely it is that there are communities that have confidence in the product and will be able to have informed discussions about what it is they want to do,” he said.
“Because, ultimately, it is the choice of individuals.”
Like so many fundamentalists or evangelicals of all religions:
He is not the first reality television star to fall from grace and is unlikely to be the last, but when the young celebrity Islamic “preacher” Syed Shah Iqmal was charged with rape, unnatural sex and outraging the modesty of one of his female followers, it seemed like half of Malaysiahad an opinion.
Syed Shah Iqmal Syed Mohammad Shaiful, 25, more commonly known as Da’i (a term for those who invite people into the religion), had grown immensely popular following his stint in the show Da’i Pendakwah Nusantara (“Nusantara Preacher”), in which contestants competed to be the next big celebrity preacher.
But it was his subsequent scandal, which follows that of other celebrity preachers before him – such as Abu Sufyan who in 2019 caused a scandal by leaving one pregnant wife and divorcing another – that has really shone the spotlight on this relatively new form of Islam-based reality TV.
The genre has become increasingly popular among ethnic Malays by offering a “consumerist” version of Islam, says Dina Zaman, the founder of Iman Reseach.
“When I look at these shows, it reminds me of the K-popsagas: suicide, toxicity in the industry, everything turned into a moneymaking venture,” she says. “But for many working-class Malays, when they see a Malay person doing well it becomes aspirational, that sort of social capital. All these young men get to be ‘hot’ for the next few years because of the spotlight given to them by these shows.”
Winners of the shows receive prizes such as a trip to Mecca to perform the haj pilgrimage, a job as an imam at a local mosque or even a full scholarship to universities in other Muslim countries.
Not coming out on top, however, is not necessarily a failure – some contestants on shows such as Imam Muda (“Young Religious Leader”) or Pencetus Ummah (“Community Catalyst”) go on to receive a healthy measure of fame, much like Syed who, despite only placing fourth, has enjoyed endorsement deals, a recording contract, acting gigs and a formidable social media following.
As in most reality shows, contestants are chosen for their on-screen charisma – rather than their religious credentials, says Firdaus Wong Wai Hung, a popular independent preacher.
“It is an open secret that whenever we are dealing with reality programmes, it is not necessary for the best candidate to be selected. Sometimes they will consider a mixture of participants to increase the commercial value of the programme.
“Some might be selected based on their good looks, some might be selected based on their poor family background, and so on,” he explains.
This was echoed by civil society group Sisters in Islam, which promotes women’s rights within an Islamic framework.
“Producers and creators of this show are great in forming a religious-concept show – everything came on point in commercialising a religion for television sake; from the props to the music, lighting and the attire, as well,” the group noted.
The danger, said SIS, came from the lack of official credentials held by these contestants. “Doesn’t this gravely undermine processes and procedures issued by state religious councils? In the name of entertainment, anything is possible.”
But these shows – which get contestants to participate in challenges such as preparing bodies for burial, reciting verses from the Koran and taking tests on Islamic theory – modernise religion in a way that appeals to younger Muslims and also accommodates a burgeoning middle class.
“Such celebrity preachers draw support from segments of Muslim youth and aspiring middle-classes. They might not have a strong religious education yet are eager to become more pious,” says Hew Wai Weng, a research fellow at the National University of Malaysia’s Institute of Malaysian and International Studies.
“Instead of traditional ways of learning Islam, they look for fun and easy ways of learning Islam. Hence, they do not expect the preachers to talk about an in-depth or critical understanding of Islam.”
Striking that only US Muslims appear to be making this call. Any Canadian Muslim groups doing the same?
US Muslim groups pleaded Thursday for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to speak out on China’s mass incarceration of Uighurs, accusing the global body of abetting what some described as genocide.
The OIC consists of 57 Muslim-majority nations and frequently takes up cases in which it believes Muslims are mistreated, criticizing Israel and, at Pakistan’s behest, India.
But the group headquartered in Saudi Arabia has not voiced alarm over China’s western region of Xinjiang, where rights groups say that more than one million Uighurs and other Turkic-speaking Muslims are being held in camps as part of an effort to stamp out Islamic customs and forcibly integrate the community.
In a March 2019 resolution, the OIC said it “commends the efforts of the People’s Republic of China in providing care to its Muslim citizens” after a delegation visited.
A coalition of US Muslim organizations including the Council on American-Islamic Relations accused member-states of being cowed by China’s power.
“It’s very clear that China has an economic chokehold on the Muslim world and has been able to isolate every Muslim country into fear of even paying lip service to the Uighur cause,” Omar Sulieman, a Muslim American scholar and rights activist, told a virtual news conference.
“Whereas some Muslim countries will pay lip service to causes like the Palestinian cause,” he said, on the Uighur issue they will “continue to aid in the oppression,” especially by turning back asylum seekers.
Uighur Americana campaigner Rushan Abbas warned that nations could see the export of policies targeting Muslims as China pursues its massive Belt and Road infrastructure-building initiative.
“China has a track record of buying and bullying. The genocide of the Uighurs is not China’s internal issue but is a humanity issue,” said Abbas, who said that her activism led China to detain her sister.
The United States, which has a rising rivalry with China, has likened the treatment of the Uighurs to actions of Nazi Germany and voiced disappointment that the OIC has not spoken up.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a rare leader from the Islamic world to have criticized China, while Malaysia has said it will not extradite Uighurs.
China describes the camps as vocational training centers and says that, like Western nations, it is working to reduce the allure of Islamic extremism.
Certainly hate speech, and interesting point about the impact of the Harper government’s repeal of provisions allowing citizens to launch civil actions against online hate speech:
A militant imam in Victoria who openly calls Jews, Christians, atheists and free-speech advocates “filthy” and “evil” is causing distress among Canadian Muslims, and there are calls for him to be prosecuted for hate speech.
“Younus Kathrada is not taken seriously in our community. Somebody making those claims is not part of Islam. But I guess there is a fringe element that follows him,” says Haroon Khan, a trustee at Vancouver’s Al-Jamia mosque, which belongs to the B.C. Muslim Association and often holds interfaith events.
Kathrada — who leads an organization called Muslim Youth of Victoria that has more than 15,000 Facebook followers — recently referred to the French teacher who was beheaded near Paris for showing cartoons of Muhammad as “a cursed, evil-spirited filthy excuse for a human being.”The hard-line imam has also appealed to his followers in Victoria and beyond to “destroy the enemies of Islam, and annihilate the heretics and the atheists.” He has told members to not vote for “filthy” and “evil” political candidates who support homosexuality or “Zionism.”
Kathrada first made international headlines last year when he called Christmas a “false festival” and said it is worse for a Muslim to wish someone “Merry Christmas” than it is to engage in adultery or murder.And he is continuing with his online denunciations.
A Canadian human rights organization that has been tracking Kathrada’s online sermons for years has been pressing for him to be prosecuted for hate speech.
“There must be consequences for years of relentless hate and incitement against Jews and others,” said Michael Mostyn, chief executive of B’nai Brith Canada, a Jewish service and advocacy group.
This fall, Mostyn said, Kathrada delivered an online sermon that referred to Jews as “brothers of monkeys and khanzeer(pigs in Arabic).” He asked God to “tear them apart.”
B’nai Brith, which has warned the RCMP’s hate crimes unit about Kathrada’s video sermons, says Canada’s law-enforcement system has shown in the past few years that it is capable of prosecuting people who advocate hate.
In November, B.C. resident Arthur Topham was sentenced to a 30-day conditional sentence plus three years probation after failing to comply with the terms of his previous conviction in 2015, when a jury concluded he had wilfully promoted hatred against Jews, Mostyn said. Topham had described Jewish places of worship as “synagogues of Satan” and advocated forcibly sterilizing Jews.
The Victoria police department could not be reached for comment about whether Kathrada has been under investigation.
Vancouver human rights lawyer Aleem Harmal, however, said it’s become difficult to take legal action in Canada for hate speech made on the internet.The Conservative government of Stephen Harper repealed the part of the Human Rights Code that had allowed citizens to launch civil actions against online hate speech, said Harmal. As a result, hate speech on the Web is now treated as a criminal offence, which is much harder to prosecute.
A hate crime is generally defined as speech, writing or behaviour that uses pejorative or discriminatory language about a person or group on the basis of such things as their religion, ethnicity or nationality, Harmal said, adding he didn’t have the expertise to judge whether Kathrada’s actions amount to hate crimes.
Three leaders of the B.C. Muslim Association, which represents most Sunni Muslims, either did not return messages or declined to comment.
However, Khan, noting Kathrada’s group does not belong to the B.C. Muslim Association, said it makes some sense for people to push for the Victoria imam to be charged with a hate crime.
“He seems to be running amok. If he is defaming Christians and Jews, we strongly condemn that kind of language. We’re all brothers and sisters,” said Khan, who is in the pharmacy business when not overseeing the Al Jamia mosque.
Khan will be the MC of a Jan. 29, 2021, Zoom forum against Islamophobia, which will include Liberal Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, federal Diversity Minister Bardish Chagger, Vancouver councillor Christine Boyle, and RCMP hate crimes officer Anthony Statham.
Maintaining that Kathrada is “sidelined” among B.C.’s roughly 70,000 Sunni and Shia Muslims, Khan said he and other mainstream adherents will look further into what the sharp-tongued imam has been doing. “We’re very open-hearted and open-minded. He’s more of a fringe group.”
Kathrada’s Facebook page, which can be viewed by the public, has long featured running commentary in which he denounces perceived enemies of his intractable form of Islam, while his online followers, apparently using their real names, support and encourage him.
In recent weeks, France has been a key target of Kathrada’s attacks. He has joined calls by some Muslim leaders in the Middle East for a boycott of all French products in protest of President Emmanuel Macron’s defence of beheaded teacher Samuel Paty.
Paty was targeted close to his school near Paris for showing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in class. His killer, 18-year-old Abdullakh Anzorov, was shot dead by police. Macron said Paty was killed by an “Islamic terrorist” for standing up for free speech.
Top Muslim leaders in Egypt, Malaysia, Morocco and Pakistan have said freedom of expression does not apply to insulting Islam or Muslims — and they argued Macron, who has launched a major crackdown on Islamic fundamentalism in his country, is promoting Islamophobia.
If it covered more groups than just Muslims, it would both be more useful as well as less identity politics based (Canada would benefit from regularized breakdowns by visible minority groups for crime, health and other statistics):
Immigration and integration minister Mattias Tesfaye has signalled his support for the statistical differentiation of people in Denmark with Middle Eastern and North African heritage.
Categorising people according to region is beneficial in understanding patterns of crime and employment in people in Denmark with foreign heritage (indvandrere og efterkommere), the minister said in an interview with newspaper Berlingske.
“We need more honest numbers and I think it will benefit and qualify the integration debate if we get these figures out in the open, because fundamentally, they show that we in Denmark don’t really have problems with people from Latin America and the Far East. We have problems with people from the Middle East and North Africa,” Tesfaye said to the newspaper.
Under the current system, Denmark differentiates between ‘Western’ and ‘non-Western’ heritage in official statistics on immigrants and their children.
All EU countries, along with Andorra, Australia, Canada, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, New Zealand, Norway, San Marino, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Vatican are considered ‘Western’. Everywhere else is ‘non-Western’.
A person is considered to have Danish heritage if she or he has at least one parent who is a Danish citizen and was born in Denmark. People defined as ‘immigrants’ and ‘descendants’ do not fulfil those criteria.
While an ‘immigrant’ was born outside of Denmark, a ‘descendant’ (efterkommer) is also considered to be ‘foreign’ for statistical purposes, despite being born in Denmark.
But the Ministry of Immigration and Integration is to further separate the two groups of immigrants and their children into the so-called ‘Menapt’ group, meaning people from the Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan and Turkey, according to Berlingske and Ritzau.
All are Muslim-majority countries or regions.
The nationalities encompassed by the group are over-represented in crime and unemployment statistics, Ritzau writes.
According to a ministry note reported by Berlingske, women with heritage in Menapt countries had an employment rate of 41.9 percent in 2018, compared to 61.6 percent for women from other non-Western countries such as Thailand and Vietnam.
Halima Aden is considered one of the top models of the world. She was one of the first models to truly break the glass ceiling for Muslim models and Muslimrepresentation in the fashion industry. Aden was also one of the first models to wear a hijab on the runway, which was considered revolutionary.
She recently sent shockwaves through the media sphere when she said that she would be taking a step back from modeling and the fashion industry because she felt she was forced to compromise her religious beliefs for too long.
Aden pointed to instances where she was forced to miss prayers and wear garments in place of her traditional hijab that didn’t align with her religious beliefs. With Muslim women as a fast-growing segment of United States and European populations, civil rights groups including the ACLU have called for Muslim women to have the right to wear head coverings.
Aden often found herself in situations where people treated any head covering as appropriate for her religious beliefs.
Campaigners are now calling for the fashion industry to represent the diversity of Muslim women, and to treat the Muslim women working within it with respect.
Rafiqah Akhdar, a Muslim model and makeup artist, told The Daily Beast, “The fashion industry doesn’t really handle Muslim representation at all. What you even do see in terms of representation is so low and so little. Even when you do see it’s a token hijabi girl, and a lot of Muslim representation is always a certain look. It’s a white-passing Muslim woman.”
“The industry doesn’t give us any representation, and even when they do it’s not a wide array,” Akhdar added. “There are how many Muslim women in the world? Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world. Representation should be moving faster than this. It’s not like Muslim women aren’t here and aren’t fashionable, but we are always treated like an afterthought.”
Hoda Katebi, an activist fashion blogger, author and photographer of “Tehran Streetstyle,” told The Daily Beast that the way the fashion industry handles representation, particularly when it comes to Muslim women, is “inherently meaningless.”
“If we are just selling magazine covers of people wearing the hijab, what is the value of that?” Katebi said. “The larger fashion industry as a whole profits from the violence of Muslim women. I don’t view representation as something that is objectively always good. It needs to be qualified. The conversation around representation is more complicated than people who are Muslim taking up space.”
Katebi’s activism as a fashion blogger has extended to labor rights activism for garment factory workers, many of whom are in Muslim heavy countries, like Indonesia, where they suffer poor working conditions that are considered human rights violations.
Katebi says that for true equality of Muslim representation to take place, there needs to be garment worker representation and those voices need to stop being erased. (Human rights organizations have called for the end of forced labor of Muslim minority groups in apparel supply chains in countries like China.)
Katebi says there is also a lack of regard for other people’s cultures and customs within the fashion industry.
“I remember one time when I was getting styled for a photoshoot, they said ‘By the way, we want you to wear your scarf for the shoot,’ like that was even optional. I was going to wear it,” Katebi said. “You don’t get to decide if was going to wear it or not. Even the ways in which styling happened, I specifically requested that I didn’t want men to undress me, I didn’t want men in the changing room with me. They consistently ignored these requests throughout the entire process.
“So many Muslim women have experienced these issues behind the scenes, and they often aren’t articulated because the bar set for the treatment of Muslim women is just so low. Even when Muslim models make it to the cover of magazines and fashion campaigns, the process just was not the same for them, and is often painful.”
The fashion industry has made some incremental changes in terms of representation over the past several years. In 2016, CoverGirl named Nura Afia its first ever hijab-wearing model as part of a panel of brand ambassadors. Nike now sells a lightweight hijab for Muslim consumers and had an entire campaign dedicated to female athletes in the Middle East. Still, many Muslim women feel the industry overall is still failing in terms of representation.
Saniyyah Bilal, a Muslim model and wardrobe stylist, says that the industry has heavily misrepresented Muslim women and has failed particularly when it comes to Black Muslim representation. The majority of Muslim women often represented are often just Arab Muslims, leaving little room for Black Muslim women to take up space. Bilal has faced issues as a model and seen how things are often misrepresented and mis-styled as a stylist.
“One of the big challenges I’ve seen with Muslim representation is just not seeing any Black Muslim women represented at all,” Bilal said. “Even looking at TV, when you see Muslim characters in television shows, they are usually Arab Muslims, and you’ll also see white actors and actresses in hijabs, and the styling of the hijab won’t even be proper, and the clothing won’t be representative of who we are.”
Bilal has been in situations where she’s done background modeling and they have tried to dress her in all black and completely cover her face, because that’s often a stylist’s perception of how all Muslim women who wear hijabs dress.
“I’ve come to shoots where no one has known how to style a hijab or what modesty is and have asked Muslim models to wear short sleeves or wear hijabs in incorrect ways,” Bilal said. “It makes us feel like outcasts for being modest Muslim women. The production team also not offering any halal meat options or kosher meat options for Muslim talent is also a problem Muslim women in the fashion industry face. We don’t feel we are being fully understood and accepted.”
Bilal recalls a particular instance where she was walking a show for New York Fashion Week, and she was modeling a bolero jacket.
The designer in question wanted to show off the neckline of the bolero jacket, so she wanted Bilal to tie her scarf as tight as possible to the back so it would be almost unnoticeable she had a scarf on. The neckline was open and not in line with Bilal’s views on modest fashion. After voicing her concerns, the designer shot down everything Bilal said. Before Bilal went on to walk, she straight pinned the neckline of the jacket to be in line with her modest fashion views, and it ended up not being an issue. She said she learned how to advocate for herself in that moment.
Melanie Elturk, the CEO of Haute Hijab, a prominent hijab and modest fashion company, sees herself as a member of the Muslim community with a fashion company rather than a fashion industry insider. Elturk says that Muslim representation in the fashion industry has been lackluster at best and that brands generally need to be more thoughtful in how they market toward Muslim women.
“Muslim women are already skeptical of outsiders and the mainstream coming into our spaces. It’s a problem we’ve had since 9/11,” Elturk said. “I’m also an attorney, and I’ve worked on various civil rights cases for years and years, and I’ve seen how Muslim women have been the victims of entrapment even prior to 9/11. Mainstream brands don’t understand that. There has to be a high level of care and intention when catering to this customer.”
Elturk also says that Muslim women are very skilled at sensing inauthenticity in campaigns and marketing and can smell a money grab instantly. This will deter them from buying. However, when Muslim consumers do feel that brands have really put in the effort and represented them properly, Muslim consumers will open their wallets to shop.
Elturk was inspired to start Haute Hijab because she remembers when she was in law school and she saw young Muslim women rarely wearing hijabs. Elturk realized that was because there were so few Muslim women wearing them in public life to look up to.
“Young Muslim women like myself had our immigrant moms who were in the house, and bless our mothers, but we had higher hopes for ourselves,” Elturk said. “I wanted to empower other Muslim women to see other women wearing hijabs being successful out there in the world, I could spark some change in that whole narrative. Women don’t have to abandon wearing their hijabs.”
Change is inevitable, with market forces helping drive it. According to the Pew Research Center, Islam will grow faster than any major world religion over the next four years, with the global Muslim population expected to reach 2.76 billion by 2050. Thirty-four percent of the Muslim population is aged below 15, and brands will want to cater to these young, up-and-coming consumers who will be a large part of the future of fashion and shopping.
Elturk says in order for the fashion industry to better represent Muslim women there needs to be more Muslim women in key decision-making roles. Muslim women need to stop being treated like a box for brands to tick off in terms of diversity efforts, Elturk adds.
As advocates for Muslim representation in the fashion industry have worked to bring these issues to light, companies like Modest Visions in the U.K., have formed to connect brands with millennial Muslim models and influencers for partnerships.
“If I can find Muslim models and influencers sitting around scrolling on Instagram, so can these multi-billion-dollar companies, it’s not difficult,” Rafiqah Akhdar said. “Brands act like they can’t find a specific person to fit their aesthetic or fit their looks, but with all the billions of diverse people in the world, I will never believe you can’t find more than one person to show diverse representation that doesn’t fit your aesthetic. They just want to stay stuck in their old ways.”
Interesting and useful case study, highlighting a strategy of “cultivating ambiguity” and creating space for employees to maintain personal balance between work and religious observation:
We tend to think of business as a secular activity, and workplaces as inappropriate settings for conversations about religious faith or observance. However, given the growing popularity of bringing one’s whole self to work, the trend towards practices such as yoga and mindfulness, and the fact that more than 80% of the world claims some sort of religious affiliation, leaders are increasingly concerned about how best to handle expressions of faith by their employees.
For many religious people, their faith is associated with deeply held values that inform their actions and behaviors at work as well as in their personal lives. In workplaces where employees feel comfortable talking about their religious beliefs, everyone can gain a richer understanding of their colleagues’ personal motivations and of the varied values at play in their organizations.
However, there are complications that come with this openness. Once the range of beliefs of a diverse workforce become more public, employees may disagree with each other about them. Expressions of belief may also conflict with the requirements of the business, forcing employers to walk a fine line between non-discrimination on religious grounds, service to the customer, and fair treatment of all employees.
These concerns are compounded in organizations that are explicitly religious (such as the Salvation Army) and in others whose founders’ religious principles inform the company’s values and practices (such as Chick-fil-A). While some employees share the beliefs at the heart of these organizations, those that do not can feel excluded or discriminated against.
At either type of organization, certain religious beliefs may dictate that employees dress a certain way or avoid eating certain foods, working on holy days, or serving certain types of customer. Pitting these tenets against the demands of business creates tension in the organization, often with negative ramifications. Conflicts over religious dress have resulted in lawsuits, causing people to leave or be fired, damaging the organization’s reputation and making it more difficult to attract or retain staff and customers. At a personal level, people can break under the strain of the conflict: delivering products or engaging in practices they don’t believe in makes them lose confidence in the organization and can become demotivated or quit altogether.
But we believe that actively accommodating highly diverse beliefs and practices within an organization is possible. Specifically, we have seen that a business’s values, customers’ values, and employees’ religious values can coexist even when on the surface they may seem pitted against each other. To explore what this might look like, we conducted a 24-month ethnographic study of the opening of KT Bank, the first Islamic bank in Germany.
The incompatibility of Islamic teaching with much of conventional Western banking practice makes the potential conflicts in this case particularly intense. Islamic banking explicitly bans the payment of interest and also prohibits the kind of speculation and risk trading that is found in conventional derivatives. The bank’s leaders, however — comprising Muslims, members of other faiths, and people without strong religious convictions — adopted a deliberately vague and flexible approach that allows them to accommodate divergent beliefs while maintaining unity.
We found that two deliberate practices involving both leaders and employees can help create what we call an elastic hybrid: an organization that can embrace different and potentially even opposing views, allowing all stakeholders to navigate competing commitments in line with their own convictions and helping the organization to find unity in diversity.
Cultivate Ambiguity
We’re used to hearing calls for ever more clarity from our leaders: precision about their message and the ability to align people behind a single, powerful vision or purpose. But to create an elastic hybrid organization, leaders must instead cultivate vagueness around how the organization’s purpose relates to religious practice.
At KT Bank, leaders deliberately obscured the way that the bank balanced its religious and commercial ambitions. The imagery on calendars or products used subtle religious symbols. People versed in Islam would recognize their religious connotation, but others could enjoy them as artistic or cultural artifacts. The most visible instance of this interpretive flexibility was KT Bank’s logo. It shows a yellow date tree on a green background. For those unfamiliar with the Islamic faith, this may evoke a sense of environmental or economic sustainability. Muslims, by contrast, would likely recognize green as the color of Islam and associate the date with divine nourishment. Campaign slogans played on double meanings that signaled religious commitments not to speculate or trade in improper goods, but could also simply be construed as a distinctive market position. For example: “Now there is a bank that does not speculate, but invests sensibly.”
The bank’s leadership was not aiming to hide anything with this vagueness, but rather to be open to being multiple things to multiple people at the same time.
Create Space — Literally
Moving between different physical places allows employees to separate out their professional work from their religious observance. Giving them the time to do so also helps alleviate this tension.
At KT Bank, we observed how staff found ways to maintain their personal balance between market and religion by use of a prayer room. There, people could temporarily retreat from work and decompress from faith/work conflicts and anxieties in whatever way they saw fit; there were no restrictions on how the room could be used or by whom, or for which faith. Flexible work times allowed people to accommodate religious practices within the working day. Several members of staff told us that it was the first time they had a designated space for prayer at work and reported feeling “deeply content” and “grateful” for the fact that KT Bank had made space for their religious practice.
This flexible approach, which recognizes and includes diverse beliefs, allows individual staff to choose their own level of religious intensity and balance it with the demands of the organization in a dynamic way. For example, at times they may choose to subordinate their religious concerns and prioritize what the company needs them to do. At other times it may be appropriate to question company practices when they seem incompatible with their personal values. A company that is open to the latter may benefit from employees’ increased willingness to do the former. And as it develops through the interplay between the leaders’ making space and the employees’ taking space, the organization is able to bend, but not to break.
This is a new area of research and more work is needed to understand successful ways that organizations have handled different kinds of conflicts between value systems and religious practice. But from what we’ve seen, in a world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity, and paradox, it may be advantageous for an organization to mirror the characteristics demonstrated by KT Bank. A perfectly aligned organization with clarity and focus at every level may not be as adaptable as organizations that make room for, and even celebrate, ambiguity.
Multicultural Meanderings 