ISTANBUL — When the auto writer Merve Sena Kilic shifted a Mini into gear for a recent test drive, she had little idea that she was fueling a remarkable shift in the head-scarf debate in Turkey.

Covering her hair with a patterned cream and brown scarf, Ms. Kilic steered the sporty Mini down winding forest roads outside Istanbul for a November episode of her television program, “A Passion for Cars,” while discussing its merits with her co-host Burcu Cetinkaya, a glamorous blonde who also happens to be a champion rally driver in Turkey.

The program on the private station Kanal 24 initially aired without causing a stir, but when a photo of the women and the car appeared last month in the society pages of the daily newspaper Hurriyet, Ms. Cetinkaya received a call from Borusan Holding, the company that distributes the Mini and BMW brands in Turkey.

via New Twists and Turns in Turkey’s Head-Scarf Debate – NYTimes.com.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/world/middleeast/new-twists-and-turns-in-turkeys-head-scarf-debate.html?_r=1

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

February 1st, 2012

MEDIA CONTACT:  352-371-2487 or 352-871-2680 or info@standupamericanow.org

International Judge Muhammad Day vs. The Istanbul Process

“If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” ~ George Washington

The Istanbul Process Begins 2011

Hilary Clinton, US Secretary of State: “I want to applaud the Organization of Islamic Conference and the European Union for helping pass Resolution 16/18 at the Human Rights Council…. together we have begun to overcome the false divide that pits religious sensitivities against freedom of expression, and we are pursuing a new approach based on concrete steps to fight intolerance wherever it occurs. Under this resolution, the international community is taking a strong stand for freedom of expression and worship, and against discrimination and violence based upon religion or belief.

“…The resolution calls upon states to protect freedom of religion, to counter offensive expression through education, interfaith dialogue, and public debate, and to prohibit discrimination, profiling, and hate crimes, but not to criminalize speech unless there is an incitement to imminent violence.

“…we have seen how the incendiary actions of just a very few people, a handful in a country of nearly 300 million, can create wide ripples of intolerance. We also understand that, for 235 years, freedom of expression has been a universal right at the core of our democracy. So we are focused on promoting interfaith education and collaboration, enforcing antidiscrimination laws, protecting the rights of all people to worship as they choose, and to use some old-fashioned techniques of peer pressure and shaming, so that people don’t feel that they have the support to do what we abhor. ” ~ Hilary Clinton, July 15 2011, Istanbul, Turkey

Burning the Koran was an act of warning, of exposing the long entrenched intolerance of Islam. We did not create intolerance. We do not hate Muslims. We are also not intolerant of Islam. Muslims have freedom to worship and must keep it, unless their worship involves drowning daughters in canals, detonating suicide bombs among crowds of innocents, or supporting those that ‘worship’ in this way. This is not tolerated by any Western law, yet the West has begun to shelter such crimes as they are sheltered in many Islamic countries.

It is the radical, violent and oppressive aspect of the ‘worship’ of Islam that needs to be exposed. We need more ‘interfaith education’ about Islam and Muhammad, not less. Expose the ‘polarizing debate’ of the Koran! Expose the lack of respect Muhammad had for those he murdered and raped, for those that just had a different view from his own.

The Istanbul Process shifted to Washington DC in December 2011 where the Obama Administration met behind closed doors with the OIC. Why is the OIC telling the American government what to do? And why can we not know what they said?

Hilary Clinton said in a public speech, “…it’s one thing if people are just disagreeing. That is fair game. That’s free speech. But if it results in sectarian clashes, if it results in the destruction or the defacement or the vandalization of religious sites, if it even results in imprisonment or death, then government must hold those who are responsible accountable.

“We have to get past the idea that we can suppress religious minorities, that we can restrict speech, that we are smart enough that we can substitute our judgment for God’s and determine who is or is not blaspheming.” ~ Hilary Clinton, December 14, 2011

So when the Islamic leaders claim it is blasphemy to say anything nagative about their teachings or prophet, although we are just quoting from the Koran itself, or repeating what those leaders themselves say about the life of Muhammad, and those Imams and Mullahs incite violence among their followers, or individual Muslims react with violence, what is she saying? Is the White House supporting the OIC’s demand for holding people like us responsible? They certainly pressure the media to ‘shame’ and ‘abhor’ what we do, to call it ‘hate crime’ and ‘criminalize speech.’  Are these the ‘concrete steps’ planned to bow to Islamic ‘religious sensitivities.’

Istanbul Process Continues, 2012

The OIC is delighted with their puppets in Washington.

JEDDAH, 8 Safar/Jan 3 (IINA)- “Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) said that the European Union offered to host the third meeting of the ‘Istanbul Process’, which deliberates, in a series of meetings, on developing mechanisms to implement UNHRC Resolution 16/18 on combating intolerance, discrimination and incitement to violence based on religion or belief.

“The Secretary General of Islamic Cooperation in his office in Jeddah on Tuesday 30 January 2012 pointed out that the EU’s offer to host the meeting represents a qualitative shift in action against the phenomenon of Islamophobia, which spread in many European countries, targeting the Muslim communities there.

“Ihsanoglu said that the growing role of the extreme right in politics in several European countries has become stronger than the capacity of the Organization, explaining that the extreme right, who hates Muslims, became leverage in the hands of politicians. He added that the rise of the extreme right through elections has become an issue that cannot be countered, considering the democratic way in which these extremist reach their positions. He pointed out to the referendum held in Switzerland, as an example, which resulted in suspending the construction of minarets there following a vote by the Swiss people.” ~JEDDAH, 8 Safar/Jan 3 (IINA)

So according to Mr. Ihsanoglu, the Swiss ‘hate Muslims’ because they banned minarets, and all the ‘extreme right’ in Europe do too, it seems. We are considered by some to be on the right, but we and many others on the right do not speak from hate. They are not ‘targeting Muslims.’ They speak against the hate that exists in some Muslims because of the hate that is evident in Islamic teachings and is emphasized by some Imams and Mullahs justifying more hate, violence and oppression. This is NOT ‘islamophobia,’ a popular word invented recently by Islamic leaders to shame dismiss any opposition to Islam. It is truth. In the West we care about truth and justice.
So the heads of Europe will meet with the US and the OIC in July to continue this ‘process.’ Will any in the West have the guts to block their demands which many see as an explicit aim is to enshrine in international law a global ban on all critical scrutiny of Islam and/or Islamic Sharia law. The four dead women in Canada cannot speak now. The countless mutilated from suicide bombs which the media cannot hide cannot speak. We will.

Terry Jones:

“International Judge Muhammad Day will be a day that we put Muhammad on trial.  We will examine his life.  Was he a prophet of God as is claimed by the religion of Islam?  Or was he a pedophile?  Was he a deceiver?  Was he a man of peace or was he a man of violence?  Did he leave behind a world religion that betters mankind and promotes the equality of mankind?  Or did he leave behind a religion of violence, a religion of racism and prejudice?  Did he leave behind a religion that does not promote living together in peace and harmony and disrespects others opinions and religions?  Or did he leave behind a religion that believes only Muslims, believers in Allah and the so-called prophet Muhammad deserve the right to live and pursue their goals in life?”

Link to Video Introduction:  International Judge Muhammad Day 9/11/12

On Facebook:  International Judge Muhammad Day

Upcoming events:  April 7, 2012 ~ Dearborn, MI ~ in front of the Islamic Center of America

September 11, 2012 ~ Gainesville, FL ~ International Judge Muhammad Day

Thank you,

Turkish people demonstrate in France against a voting session for a bill criminalizing the denial of the Armenian genocide

(CNN) — Europe and the Muslim world seem to be on a collision course that could have major political, economic and ideological ramifications. January 23, 2012, may well come to be remembered as the crucial date when Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis, which many of us believed discredited beyond repair, was reaffirmed.

Political scientist Huntington wrote in 1993 that cultural divisions preclude a defining global civilization, and the West and the Muslim world would never share the same values.

Last month, Europe took two different actions that nonetheless sent the same message to the Muslim world: You are not our equals and are doomed to be judged by standards different from those by which we judge ourselves. Future historians might call January 23 the day when Europe irreversibly alienated not one, but both, pivotal powers — Iran and Turkey — that in all probability will dominate the political landscape of the Middle East for several decades.

One action was the European Union’s decision to ban oil purchases from Iran, including imports of crude oil, petroleum products and petrochemical products, to force Tehran to negotiate away its uranium enrichment program, which Tehran insists is for civilian use only. This is the latest in a series of increasingly stringent sanctions that Western powers have unilaterally imposed on Iran. These sanctions go well beyond those required by the U.N. Security Council.

Mohammed Ayoob

Mohammed Ayoob

The EU sanctions attempt to hit the Iranian economy where it hurts most: Europe imports about a fifth of Iranian oil. When combined with a ban on transactions with Iran’s Central Bank, this action is aimed at paralyzing the Iranian economy.

At the same time, the French Senate passed a law making it a crime to deny genocides that are officially recognized by France. The two genocides in this category are the Holocaust and the killing of 1.5 million Armenians in Anatolia during the last years of the Ottoman Empire. Because the denial of the Holocaust is already a crime under French law, the obvious objective of the bill is to criminalize the denial of the 1915 Armenian genocide.

Sanctions hurting Iran economy

France passes Armenian genocide bill

The issue of Armenian genocide touches a very raw nerve in Turkey, which denies the scale of the killings — Turkey maintains that roughly 500,000 Armenians were killed — as well as the claim that it was planned. According to Turkey, the killings happened in the midst of the disarray accompanying World War I and the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey says a nearly equivalent number of Turks and Kurds were also killed in inter-ethnic strife with the Armenians, who were allied with the Ottoman’s Russian adversaries.

It’s not the accuracy of the opposing claims that is at issue; it’s Muslim perceptions. Iran may well be trying to develop nuclear weapons, and what amounts to an Armenian genocide may well have taken place. What roils Muslim opinion worldwide is the perception that the West uses blatant double standards to pass judgment.

Harsh sanctions on Iran are seen as an attempt to prevent a Muslim country from developing deterrents to attacks from Israel and the United States, both nuclear powers hostile to the Islamic Republic. Most Western discussions of the Iranian bomb do not make even passing reference to the well-documented Israeli nuclear capability, even as Israel threatens to militarily strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. This omission is seen as hypocritical, dishonest and self-serving.

For many in the Muslim world, double standards explain why France singled out Turkey, and didn’t criminalize the denial of other nations’ crimes against humanity. Although denying Germany’s crimes is a crime, the Holocaust is universally accepted as genocide, while Turkey’s is not.

Many ask why disputing European massacres of non-European people is not criminalized — such as the French actions in Algeria, as Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has said. These would include the near-total extermination of native populations by European settlers in Australia, New Zealand, and North America.

They would include the killings of millions of people by the Belgian administration of the Congo Free State, whose population was halved during the early decades of Belgian rule. Most pertinent of all, Muslims ask, why not criminalize the denial of the genocidal Spanish Inquisition that led to the extermination, expulsion or conversion of the entire Muslim and Jewish populations of the Iberian peninsula?

Many Muslims perceive these moves as the West targeting Iran and Turkey in an attempt to prevent important Muslim countries from achieving the military capacity — Iran — and the political stature — Turkey — they deserve. Many see behind these moves the not-so-hidden hand of an ideology based on Huntington’s theory of the clash of civilizations. Although these perceptions may not fully conform with reality, it is well established that perceptions count much more than reality in the conduct of international relations.

via Is Europe setting up clash between Muslims and the West? – CNN.com.

“The Chechen diaspora in Turkey asked Erdogan to give the holy hairs to Chechnya. We received a positive response within a month and the priceless gift has been delivered to Grozny today,” Aihan Ergyuven, chairman of the Chechen committee Sivas, told reporters at the Grozny airport.

Despite the cold weather, thousands of Chechens, including Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, met the hairs at the Grozny airports and in the city’s streets.

A religious ritual marking this event was held in the republic’s central mosque.

According to earlier reports, a different hair of Prophet Mohammad was taken from Uzbekistan to Chechnya on January 26, 2011. The hair is a capsule, which is located in a box. According to historical documents, the hair, which was taken to the Grozny central mosque, had been in Uzbekistan since the times of the Caliphate.

via Interfax-Religion.

By Katie Silver

A magazine for the modern, fashion-conscious Muslim woman is proving that when it comes to Turkey, you don’t need bikinis, breasts and legs to sell issues.

Outraged when he saw photos of transsexuals in a magazine, devout Muslim Ibrahim Burak Birer, 31 decided to create a magazine in Istanbul that would contest the ‘diktat of nudity’.

With his friend Mehmet Volkan Atay, 32, he created Alâ, a magazine described as the avant-garde of ‘veiled’ fashion.

The first issue: Released in June, Alâ has been described as the ‘Vogue of veiled fashion’. It appeals to the modern, education, fashion-conscious Muslim woman

The magazine only shows women in headscarves

Alâ, which is Turkish for ‘the most beautiful of the beautiful’, only shows models in headscarves and will only advertise clothing that conforms to Islamic customs.

‘Cosmopolitan, Elle, Vogue, Marie Claire, it’s all about sex and naked skin,’ says Mr Birer. ‘The motto is that sex sells. But we, and millions of women around the world, believe that fashion can also be different.’

Despite having only six issues under their belt, the magazine has been so successful that they have needed to increase circulation multiple times.

The magazine now has a circulation of 30,000 with some 5,000 subscriptions are sent abroad.

‘We had no experience with magazines before that. We’re marketing people,’ Mr Atay told SpiegelOnline. ‘We specialised in recognising market niches.’

1,500 of the subscriptions are sent to Germany alone where the magazine has a big following amongst devout Turkish migrants.

As a result, entrepreneurial Mr Birer and Mr Atay said they could definitely foresee coming out with a German Alâ in the future.

The magazine has been very successful with a circulation of 30,000

And not just a Muslim product, it would be marketed to all females since the ‘battle against nudity’ is important to all women, Mr Birer said.

More…

It’s not my fault I’m a sex addict: Woman reveals she has slept with more than 1,000 men

Bollywood on board: Finnair cabin crew become YouTube sensation with dance routine

Selling for 9 lira, or £3.20, it has been described as ‘the Vogue of the veiled’ by German magazine Radikal.

Atay and Birer have found a product for an increasingly prevalent part of Muslim society: the educated, fashion-focused woman with disposable income who still believes in wearing the veil.

Creating the magazine: Mr Brier and Mr Atay attribute their success to finding an untapped market

Creating the magazine: Mr Brier and Mr Atay attribute their success to finding an untapped market. Their backgrounds are in marketing, not magazine publishing

Cosmopolitan

Scarlett Johansson

Mr Birer was fed up of the ‘dikat of nudity’ in found in others women’s magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Vogue

But the men have faced objections from their own camp with one theologian complaining that women should be submissively behind rather than putting themselves forward.

‘That’s not our understanding of Islam,’ says Mr Atay. ’We don’t believe that women should hide themselves. Even the veiled have a right to stylish fashion.’

via Alâ: Turkish fashion magazine created for women who wear headscarves | Mail Online.

By Cristina Everett / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Liam Neeson, who was raised Catholic, said Islamic prayer ‘got into his spirit’ during his time in Istanbul.

Liam Neeson may have found a new faith during his time filming in Istanbul.

The Irish actor admitted to the U.K.’s Sun newspaper that he is considering giving up his Catholic beliefs in order to become a Muslim.

Neeson, 59, went on to explain that Islamic prayer “got into his spirit” when he spent time in the Turkish city working on the action-thriller “Taken 2.”

“The call to prayer happens five times a day, and for the first week, it drives you crazy, and then it just gets into your spirit, and it’s the most beautiful, beautiful thing,” he told the newspaper.

“There are 4,000 mosques in the city,” he added. “Some are just stunning, and it really makes me think about becoming a Muslim.”

Neeson, who was raised a devout Catholic, served as an altar boy during his youth and was named after a local priest in Northern Ireland.

However the actor, who stars in the upcoming action flick “The Grey,” has previously expressed his opinions toward religion.

“I was reared a Catholic, but I think every day we ask ourselves, not consciously, what are we doing on this planet? What’s it all about?” he has said. “I’m constantly reading books on God or the absence of God and atheism.”

via Liam Neeson may convert to Islam: Actor says he’s considered ‘becoming a Muslim’  – NY Daily News.

I am talking about the complicit support given to Muslim countries in the UN who have been on a rampage to make it an international crime to criticize Islam in any way, shape or form.

In December 2011, the United States hosted what is known as the “Istanbul Process Conference” in Washington, DC. This Conference is explicitly committed to a global ban on any verbal or written criticism of any aspect of Islamic Sharia—even if it is an honest assessment. After all, how else will they cram Sharia down the throats of unsuspecting Westerners?

This effort is spear-headed by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation [OIC], an organization of 57 Muslim countries. The OIC has long been pressuring the European Union and the United States to sign on to what amounts to a suicidal scheme, not only for Europeans and Americans, but to all freedom-loving people in the world.

The OIC’s success in their feverish effort to have the UN pass Resolution 16/18 is a modern day marvel. That resolution was adopted at the HRC [Human Rights Commission] in Geneva in March 2011 and it was quietly approved by the 193-member UN General Assembly on December 19th. However, it needs strong Western support to be effectual.

If this is supported by the West, Americans, with their love for the First Amendment, will have to watch as they lose the free exercise of religion and freedom of speech as Islamic Sharia is slowly but surely enforced in the United States just as it is in England today.

What the United States did in hosting the Istanbul Process was unprecedented since the founding of the United Nations. Namely, they gave the OIC political legitimacy in its desire to silence any voice, including the voice of good Muslim scholars, from criticizing Islam or its tenets. Now Europe is chomping at the bit to host the next convention.

Make no mistake about it. What the OIC is aspiring to accomplish both in Europe and in America is to muzzle the few brave politicians and diplomats who are objecting to the Islamic refusal to integrate into both continents. Indeed, they are asking for Muslims and Islam to be given a privileged position.

As a boy attending government schools in Egypt, we were taught openly and unequivocally, by Muslim teachers, that Islam spreads throughout the world by the sword. However, Islamic expansion could also be fueled in other ways—as indeed we see today.

Today, it is being spread by intimidation of the UN, European Union, and United States, particularly the intimidation of some weak and hapless diplomats and politicians. In all of this, they are using billions of petrodollars as a carrot for their silence.

If we do not take action, we won’t even have to wait ten years before the world wakes up to discover that this nightmare is a reality. In this nightmare reality, good people will be dragged before international courts, facing financial and personal ruin for merely speaking the truth about Islam.

Unless courageous politicians who do “get it” are elected very, very soon, freedom as we know it will be a luxury of the past.

via The European Union and the United States Sign a Suicide Pact – Michael Youssef – Townhall Conservative.

• Haroon Moghul

  RD associate editor Haroon Moghul is a fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a senior editor at the Islamic Monthly and a doctoral candidate at Columbia University. His work has appeared or he has been otherwise featured on CNN, BBC, History Channel, al-Jazeera, Today’s Zaman, and Tikkun. He is the author of The Order of Light (Penguin, 2006).

• • Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty
  • by Mustafa Akyol
  • W. W. Norton & Company , 2011

  It seemed a few years ago that the post-9/11 spike in the field of Islamic studies was waning, no doubt accelerated by economic crisis and fatigue with a long, uncertain war. But then the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt brought Islam, Arabs, and the Middle East, back to global attention.

  This interest will only continue to grow; the direction of the Middle East will be crucial to how our world turns out in coming decades. And with Islamist parties triumphing in recent elections across a democratizing region, we in America are ever more concerned—and confused.

  Who can we turn to for some insight, and not only thought, but actual ideas? What voices over there can we learn from—and should we listen to?

  I had the chance to speak with Mustafa Akyol, author of Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty; Akyol is a Turkish media personality, newspaper columnist, and intellectual. He also gets to live in Istanbul, which should properly go on his resumé.

  Many have argued Turkey’s experience is deeply important to the Middle East (and see my post this weekend about Newt Gingrich’s longtime admiration for Kemal Ataturk). Whether or not you agree, Akyol deserves to be more widely read, as he pushes well past the typical clichés—for him, Islam and liberalism are not merely reconciled, but—well, you’ll see.

  HM: Tell me a little bit about how and why you wrote this book.

  MA: This book is mainly about the problem of freedom in Islam. I argue that Islam, as its very core, is a religion that liberated the individual from the bond of the tribe and similar collective bodies. But I also show how the initial impetus of the faith was partly overshadowed as a result of some early theological controversies, and, moreover, political decisions. This also means that some of those early debates can be reopened, and coercive elements in Islamic law and culture can be reformed. And I am saying all these within a particularly Turkish outlook, as I explain the little known history of “Muslim liberalism” that emerged in the late Ottoman Empire and modern-day Turkey.

  Who did you write this for?

  I wrote this for both Muslims and non-Muslims who believe that Islam and liberal democracy are fundamentally incompatible. Obviously, I disagree with them. I rather want to show them that a genuinely Islamic yet liberal view of the world is possible. Muslims can tolerate the “freedom to sin,” for example, not because they condone sin, but that its judgment should be left to God.

  Can you explain what you mean by liberalism?

  By liberalism, I mean a political and economic system which limits the powers of the state, and gives individuals, and their voluntary associations, the freedom to shape their destinies. I think liberty has been a value throughout history, but liberalism became a full-fledged ideology in the modern age, for the modern state threatened liberty in unprecedented levels.

  I also think that today liberalism presents the best medium for Muslims to live Islam in the various ways that they understand it.

  Let me push you a little bit here. I would argue that most interpretations of Islam place a strong emphasis on the social, the communal, often above the individual—and if we stress the liberation of the individual from larger collectives, does Islam play any role in the great social questions of our time? Should Islam also speak to the intermediary institutions, between state power and individual life, to temper that power and protect that individual?

  Of course I am not saying that Islam does not have a sense of the community. It certainly does. Moreover, that sense implies a strong basis for civil society, which is of course very important for empowering and protecting the individual in the face of threats coming the from the modern state.

  However, I believe that the Qur’an, with its strong emphasis on the individual’s personal faith and deeds, presented a more individualistic worldview than some Muslims appreciate. I actually believe that the individualism of the Qur‘an was gradually overshadowed by a more communitarian mindset that shaped Islam in its formative centuries. I explore such differences between the Qur’an and the post-Qur’anic tradition, and how they came to be, in my book.

  You say Muslims should tolerate sin. But of course we don’t tolerate some sins—murder, cheating, lying in certain circumstances. Are there some sins that we must object to socially? And if it isn’t a matter of state power, should Muslims still condemn sins?

  You make a great point—and that is something I discuss in my book chapter, The Freedom to Sin. There, I suggest a distinction between sin and crime. Sins are acts of personal disobedience to God, like drinking wine or refraining from daily prayer. But crimes are acts that hurt other people, like murder or theft. Most crimes are also sins, but I am saying that not all sins should be considered as crimes. And I am saying that by looking at what the Qur’an really penalizes and what it does not.

  You mention the distinction between sin and crime. However, many Muslims—like many people of other faiths—believe that sins cause genuine harm in the world. For example, that sinning causes God to, say, withhold rain from the earth. This might lead religious folks to believe that sins, too, should be socially punished. What do you say to that?

  Well, first I would disagree with the theology there. The Qur’an tells us that some specific societies in history—such as Sodom and Gomorrah—were destroyed by God via natural disasters; but I think those are exceptional miracles and not the norm. The norm, I think, is that natural disasters happen via natural causes which God has set in place, and are not related with our sins. Earthquakes really do not selectively hit cities of vice, such as, say, Las Vegas. They just hit the cities that are placed on tectonic faultiness. Or raining patterns really do not show any correlation with levels of godliness or godlessness.

  Even if people believe that this or that disaster has happened because of this or that sin, this subjective idea cannot be the base of objective laws that will be imposed on us. Shall we impose vegetarianism by law, for example, because some Buddhists see meat-eating as the source of all evil? We have the right to believe in our theologies, but we cannot impose them to all.

  I walk through the bookstore, see your book, and as a Muslim I think, another book about Islam that frames us around extremism.  Do you think that perhaps framing Islam around extremism, even to push back against it, might just reinforce the same narrative?

  Well, “extremism” is a vague term, and I really wanted to focus on something more specific: authoritarianism in Islamic law and culture. In other words, this book is not about why Muslims should reject terrorism—the overwhelming majority of the world’s Muslims already do that. But not all of them tend to be that liberal when it comes to issues such as apostasy, blasphemy, sin, or different interpretations of Islam. That’s why one scholar said that there is a problem of “illiberal moderates” in the Islamic world. That is the problem that I am really focusing on.

  You have a lot of reach in Turkey. And of course, Islam in Turkey is increasingly seizing the world’s attention. From your perspective, how do you see Islam in Turkey right now? What are you pleased with, and what are you worried about?

  Of course, we Turks still have lots of problems with our own politics and culture. Yet it is fair to say that Islam in Turkey has a much healthier experience with democracy. Many people would readily say that Turkeys owes this to Ataturk and his ultra-secularist reforms. But, in my book, I argue that we actually owe our Islamo-democratic synthesis to the opponents of the strict Atat¸rkist tradition, such as Menderes of the ’60s, Ozal of the ’80s and most lately Erdogan. Today, the mainstream Islamic view in Turkey is at peace with the secular (but not secularist!) state, and how this came to be is a curious story that I relate in my book.

  Can you expand on the distinction between the secular state and the secularist state?

  Sure. A secular state is neutral to religion, and respects religious practices unless they cause harm to individuals. A secularist state, however, bears an ideological hostility to religion, and wants to secularize society by banning religious practices or institutions. Most communist dictatorships of the past century were secularist states. Kemalist Turkey, too, has been a secularist state—which banned the headscarf, Sufi orders, or religious education—and it has given a bad name to secularity among the world’s Muslims. Luckily, though, that excessive secularism of Turkey has been defanged to some extent in the recent years.

  I want to elaborate on this distinction between secular and secularist. In places like Egypt, and potentially Libya and Yemen as well, democracy will throw forward explicitly Islamist parties, however much some of them might want to deny it (although Islamist doesn’t mean authoritarian). Do you think these parties can contribute to building democratic societies? Is it possible to build post-secular states, neutral between religion and secularism?

  ”Islamist” does not mean authoritarian, if it implies a political party that is inspired by Islamic principles and values, but articulates them within the rules of liberal democracy. The closest example to that seems to be Ennahda in Tunisia, and I am hopeful about its future. But other Islamist parties such as the Freedom and Justice Party of Egypt, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, still seem to believe in an “Islamic state” that will impose an “Islamic way of life” on society. The problem with that is not just authoritarianism. It is also that whomever imposes Islam via the state will be imposing the “Islam” that he or she understands.

  But since no Muslim school of thought can claim an ultimate access to truth—as the “Postponers” of the 7th century realized, as I explain in my book—the state should better be neutral when it comes to religious matters. Whether the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt and its counterparts in other Arab countries will be humble enough to see that is the next big question.

  How do you see Islam faring in Europe? In America? Do you think the Arab spring might make things better or worse?

  I think partly in America and more so in Europe, Islam suffers from being the religion of the immigrants. Immigrant communities sometimes have problems simply because of their “alienness,” and the unwelcoming-ness of their hosts, and these problems can appear as a friction between Islam and non-Islam.

  Whenever I speak about this, I note that the EU member country with the highest percentage of Muslims in its population is not UK, France or Germany but Bulgaria. Yet you never hear about Bulgaria’s “Muslim question,” for its Muslims are native Turks and Pomaks who have been living in that country for centuries.

  As for the Arab Spring, I am of course very supportive of it, for it is toppling or challenging the dictators who oppressed Arab societies for decades. (Right now, I am keeping my fingers crossed for the fall of the Baath tyranny Syria.) But democracies—let alone liberal democracies—do not emerge overnight, and the post-revolutionary countries will need some time and lots of effort to build them.

  I know this is a loaded question, but what is Islam’s purpose? Or, perhaps I’ll put it another way: What is it that attracts you, and keeps you affiliated with, this religion?

  Well, I believe Islam’s main purpose is the same with that of all other Abrahamic monotheisms: To make humans aware of their Creator and His intentions. In other words, it is primarily about connecting God and man. Of course, God, through the Qur’an, gives man some rules and principles that will guide his behavior to other men as well—that is where Islamic law comes from. But I also think that this law, in its divine origin, is intentionally limited and flexible, for social structures always change and laws should adapt to that change.

  What keeps me affiliated with Islam? Well, its main purpose: I believe that I have a Creator, and Islam is the straightest path that I know to connect with Him.

  Let’s say I run a madrasa. (Note: I don’t). What books, thinkers, ideas would you recommend to the next generation of Muslim scholars, theologians, and preachers?

  Well, if it were your madrasa, I am sure it would be a cool one, and I would be happy to support it. As for the religious curriculum, I would suggest, first, a good translation of and commentary to the Qur’an. Then a good book on the history of Islamic thought, which would expose the students to all the different colors of our religion that has evolved in the past fourteen centuries.

  Among modern writers, I would suggest books by the late Alia Izzetbegovic, the “philosopher-king” and the brave leader of the Bosnians, Muhammed Abduh, Fazlur Rahman, and even Said Nursi, a Turko-Kurdish Islamic scholar and hero whose emphasis on “freedom” is little known outside of Turkey. Finally, I would also add the Bible to the curriculum. The Qur’an repeatedly refers to it, and it is a pity that we Muslims have taken very little notice of that.

  What’s next for you?

  Well, God knows that best. On my side, I am just expecting many talks and conferences in the year to come. But then I have other books in mind. Perhaps something with the title, “Towards A Free Muslim Mind,” which will articulate a Muslim worldview that is genuinely religious but also consistently liberal. I am hoping to write a novel at some point, too—a novel that will put all my ideas into characters and events, and which will hopefully inspire the readers.

At Tübingen, the first 36 students have already enrolled for a bachelor degree in Islamic theology, starting next winter.

Like two others, one split between Münster and Osnabrück and the other between Frankfurt and Giessen, which are to be officially opened later this year, the Tübingen centre started its academic activities last October. A fourth, located at Erlangen and Nuremberg, will officially start in the winter semester of 2012-13.

The federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) will be providing a total of around EUR20 million (US$26 million) to support the scheme.

The federal government decided four years ago to set up new centres for Islamic theology. A government commission reviewing the issue maintained that given the more than four million Muslims in Germany, such centres were urgently needed.

Up to 2,000 teachers are required for a total of 700,000 schoolchildren over the next few years. The new centres will train teachers for Islamic religious education, junior scholars of Islamic theology and religious scholars, also for mosques, as imams.

The BMBF is initially providing around EUR4 million for the Tübingen centre to fund university chairs, assistant staff and groups of junior scholars.

According to Tübingen’s rector, Bernd Engeler, the chief aim of the centre is to provide scholars with a broad-based education so that they can represent religious studies as an academic subject. Engeler regards training teachers who will eventually be teaching religion at higher secondary schools, or academics going on to careers in the media or various social service areas, as far more important than concentrating on imams.

“We wish to contribute the wealth of experience that we have gathered in theology at German universities to the development of Islamic theology,” Federal Education Minister Annette Schavan said at the opening ceremony in Tübingen on 16 January.

“I am sure that this is a milestone for integration, too.” The minister added that the centre offered a “great opportunity to promote dialogue with the Christian religions”.

The centre has been in operation for the past few months, pending its official inauguration by the minister.

Koranic scholar Omar Hamdan is the first professor appointed at Tübingen. Hamdan graduated in Islamic and Arabic studies in Jerusalem as well as comparative religion in Tübingen.

Leijla Demiri, from Macedonia, is to hold the chair of Islamic dogmatics from the winter semester of 2012-13. Demiri studied Islamic theology in Istanbul and Catholic theology in Rome, and subsequently did a PhD in comparative theology at the University of Cambridge.

Two junior professors are to teach Islamic law and the history and contemporary culture of Islam.

A seven-member Muslim advisory council is to support the process of institutionalising Islamic theology. The academic skills of the professors are tested solely by the University of Tübingen. The students comprise 23 women and 13 men, and come from all over the world.

via First of four centres to train Islamic scholars opens – University World News.