Mill Valley Children Enjoy Lesson in Islam

By Elaine Pasquini

Leaving their shoes outside the door in traditional Muslim fashion, some 125 students from the Mill Valley Middle School filed into the Islamic Center of Mill Valley on Dec. 5 to learn about Islam. Muslim-American Ameena Jandali, of the Islamic Network Group and Islamic Speakers Bureau, addressed the attentive youngsters who sat cross-legged on brightly colored carpets for the two-hour program.

After listening to Jandali give a brief explanation of the Muslim noon prayer service, the youngsters silently observed Abdullah Nana, an Islamic scholar of Indian heritage, lead a group of 25 men in their daily noontime prayers. Following the 30-minute prayer service, Jandali resumed her discussion. Central to Islam, she explained, is the belief in one god, called Allah in Arabic—the same God worshipped by Jews and Christians. She talked about Prophet Muhammad, who was born in Mecca in 570 CE and received the Qur’an, considered the literal word of God and Islam’s dominant scripture, over several years beginning in 612 CE. The five pillars of Islam as described in the Qur’an are shahadeh, the profession of faith; salat, prayers performed five times a day at dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset and night; siyaam, fasting during the month of Ramadan; zakat, charity for the poor; and hajj, pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime.

Jandali told her young audience that, contrary to what many people believe, not all Muslims are Arabs. Only 18 percent of the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims are Arabs, she noted. The largest numbers of Muslims, more than 300,000 total, reside in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Indonesia’s Muslim population of 170,000 is the largest of any single country. The six to seven million Muslims living in the U.S., Jandali said, are of varied ethnic backgrounds. About 42 percent of American Muslims are African-American and, she added, one-third of the slaves brought to North America from Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries were Muslim.

Another misconception, propagated especially by the media, said Jandali, is the definition of the word jihad, which is most often defined by the media as “holy war.” “Jihad,” she stressed, “means striving,” frequently in terms of making oneself a better person. “Jihad does not mean killing innocent civilians,” Jandali emphasized.

The Islamic Center of Mill Valley, established in 1991, serves the small Muslim community of Marin County, California. Located on a quiet residential street in an upscale community, the center has received an inordinate amount of media attention since Dec. 2. On that day John Walker, a 20-year-old American citizen from San Anselmo, California, was taken into custody by U.S. military forces along with 86 Taliban fighters housed in the Qala Jangi fortress prison in Mazar-e-Sharif. Walker, son of a Roman Catholic father and Buddhist mother, converted to Islam at age 16. Abdullah Nana, a friend of Walker’s from the Islamic Center, remembers him as a quiet and gentle person. “That he ended up with the Taliban was something I never would have expected,” Nana told the Washington Report.

In 1998 Walker traveled to Yemen to study Arabic. Two years later he moved on to Pakistan, where he continued his Islamic studies until approximately May 15, 2001, when his parents lost contact with him. They later learned he apparently crossed the border into Afghanistan and became a Taliban soldier. Walker’s divorced parents have hired renowned San Francisco attorney John Brosnahan to defend their son against the charge of providing military support to a terrorist organization. Brosnahan is best known for prosecuting former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger in the 1992 Iran-Contra probe.

Experts Discuss Afghan War, Sept. 11 Aftereffects

On Dec. 12 the Department of International Studies of Dominican University at San Rafael presented a public forum on the political, economic and cultural dimensions of the Sept. 11 attacks and the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. The program moderator was Suresh Appavoo, director of diversity initiatives and assistant professor of the school of education. Speakers included Paul Cheney, Dominican adjunct professor of politics; Agha Saeed, national director of the American Muslim Alliance; and Barry Goodfield, visiting professor at Oxford University and director of the Goodfield Foundation for the study of conflict communication and peace building.

Cheney discussed his concerns about the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan, which he feels the U.S. is “waging single-handedly and excludes a multilateral approach.” He also expressed concern about the inadequate media coverage of the war which, Cheney noted, has not reported that “5,000 innocent civilians have been killed in Afghanistan since the bombings began Oct. 7.”

He cited examples of past U.S. foreign policy which are inconsistent with President Bush’s current “war on terrorism,” such as U.S. training and support in the 1980s of the Contras, an anti- Sandinista Nicaraguan “terrorist” organization. In addition, he pointed out that, until September of last year, the U.S. was negotiating with the Taliban for an oil pipeline to run from the Caspian Sea area through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea. “The U.S. was thinking of other issues besides just Bin Laden” with regard to the current war, he said. “The role of oil has been ignored.”

Goodfield defined “violence” as “a communication about a lack of communication,” and said Americans “must deal with the underlying causality of terrorism.”

One such cause, he stated, is the lack of a homeland for the Palestinians, an issue he feels must be resolved to the Palestinians’ satisfaction immediately. He also discussed the need for balanced reporting by the media and urged the audience to become actively involved by, among other things, writing letters to newspaper editors and contacting radio and television stations about news reporting they feel is “skewed.”

Saeed emphasized the difficulties involved in rebuilding Afghanistan and the absolute need for Afghans to be self-governing, democratic, independent and free of colonialism, as well as free of the Taliban. “A victory should not be a colonial victory,” he insisted. Instead, he said, Afghanistan should be allowed to be a “moderate, unaligned, mostly secular country” as it was from 1921 to 1979.

The AMA director argued that Russia should pay reparations to the Afghans for the deaths of one million Afghans and the destruction of their country during the decade-long Soviet occupation from 1979 to 1989. An Afghanistan at peace, Saeed concluded, cannot be achieved in a vacuum. “There will be no peace in Afghanistan without stability in the entire region” he said.

Minister Dan Meridor Provides Israeli View Of Current Intifada

Dan Meridor, Israel’s minister-without-portfolio and national defense adviser, expressed the Israeli government’s views on the current situation in Palestine/ Israel at the San Francisco World Affairs Council on Dec. 11. The program was co-sponsored by the Consulate General of Israel.

Meridor began his one-hour talk by briefly addressing the events of Sept. 11 and President George W. Bush’s “war on terrorism.” The remainder of the program was devoted to the Israeli-Palestinian situation, followed by questions from the audience.

The Israeli minister espoused his government’s oft-repeated mantra that Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat should have accepted the “offer” the Israelis made to him at Camp David in July 2000. In keeping with tradition, Meridor ignored the fact that the land “offered” to the Palestinians consisted of non-contiguous areas surrounded by illegal Jewish settlements, Jewish-only by-pass roads, and Israeli military checkpoints. The “offer” also left Israel in control of Palestinian water and air space. He dismissed the Palestinian right of return as being unfeasible in that it would interfere with Israel remaining a “Jewish state.” Meridor supported a two-state scenario in order to retain Israel’s Jewish majority and called Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s acceptance of the idea of a Palestinian state “revolutionary.”

The minister went on to state that Israel still wants a peace agreement, but will not sign one with Arafat unless he “controls” the violence. “We do not have a quick fix,” Meridor said.

Ignoring Israel’s bombing of Palestinian installations and civilians, he stated, “We [Israel] cannot bomb them [the Palestinians], we are not Americans.” Although he expressed regret for the two children killed in Hebron on Dec. 10—when 3-year-old Burhan Mohammad Ibrahim Al-Himouni’s head was blown apart when an Israeli missile hit the car in which he was riding, and 13-year-old Shadi Ahmad Abdel Mu’ati Arafa sustained fatal injuries to his neck and head as a result of the explosion—Meridor maintained that “We do not target civilians.”

More than 179 Palestinian children have been killed by the Israeli military or settlers since the beginning of the intifada in September 2000. In addition, some 6,000 Palestinian children have been wounded as a direct result of Israeli military and settler actions in the occupied territories.

In response to audience questions pertaining to the illegal settlements in the West Bank, Gaza and Arab East Jerusalem, Meridor asked, “Why is it [the settlements] a big problem? If Arabs live inside Israel, why can’t Jews live in the West Bank?”

El Saadawi Calls U.S. Foreign Policy “Real Terrorism”

“We cannot fight terrorism with terrorism,” stated Nawal El Saadawi, speaking at the University of California at Berkeley’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies on Nov. 25. More than 100 people turned out on the last day of the long Thanksgiving weekend to hear the renowned Egyptian author and human rights activist address the topic, “Religious Fundamentalism, Globalization and Women.”

A 1955 graduate of the University of Cairo, where she earned a degree in psychiatry, El Saadawi was fired from her position as director of public health after her novel Women and Sex was published in 1972. Love in the Kingdom of Oil is the most recent of her more than 30 books, which have been translated into 20 languages.

The U.S.-led war on Afghanistan, El Saadawi insisted, is “a war to exploit the oil in the region.” It has nothing to do with eradicating terrorism, she maintained, the roots of which, poverty and oppression, are not addressed by either the U. S. government or the mainstream media. She urged the audience to “think how we can save our world from real terrorism—U.S. foreign policy and its steadfast support of Israel—not Osama bin Laden.”

Whenever there is a crisis, the fiery author/activist continued, “the weakest sections of society suffer the most, such as women and children.” While not minimizing the tragedy of Sept. 11, she pointed out the hypocrisy of U.S. foreign policy, reminding the audience that, according to U.N. estimates, 5,000 Iraqi children continue to die monthly due to U.N.-imposed economic sanctions. “Are American lives worth more than others?” she asked.

Turning to the renewed interest in religion following Sept. 11, she noted that religious fundamentalism is a universal phenomenon. Every Muslim country interprets Islam differently, she explained, just as Europe interprets Christianity differently from America.

Finally, El Saadawi expressed her belief that “the words of Bush, Blair, Bin Laden and the pope are the same. They speak the same language when they speak about religion.”

Berkeley Students’ Anthology Generates Great Demand

University of California at Berkeley anthropology doctoral students Adrian McIntyre and Misha Klein have recently compiled and published a 610-page anthology entitled September 11: Contexts and Consequences. The anthology has generated unexpected interest from universities and organizations around the world. College instructors are delighted with it as they struggle to answer students’ questions, and school libraries do not always have the information readily available. In addition to maps, a history of the Middle East, and commentaries on the Sept. 11 attacks, the book includes an Osama bin Laden interview and material from scholar Noam Chomsky, among others. The paperback book is available at Copy Central, 2560 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA; 510-848-8649; <www.copycentral.com>. In order to cover production and copyright expenses, the book is priced at $41.68.

Elaine Pasquini is a free-lance journalist based in Ignacio, CA.