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Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| Muslims, Islamic Law and Public Policy in the US |
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| Tamzid |
| 06/23/03 at 19:42:06 |
| Here is an excerpt from the excellent article "Muslims, Islamic Law and Public Policy in the United States" by Dr Sherman Jackson (aka Shaykh Abdal Hakim Jackson). In this article he talks about problems plaguing the muslim community in the US for example the threat of double consciouseness , limits of legislatve politics etc. Then he goes on to provide possible solutions for these problems. ________________- Muslims, Islamic Law and Public Policy in the United States By Sherman A. Jackson http://ispi-usa.org/policy/policy4.html THE THREAT OF DOUBLE-CONSCIOUSNESS Two basic challenges confronting Muslims in America inform the present essay. The first has to do with the enterprise of self-definition, that is, of defining for oneself who one is and which actions and non-actions are therefore consistent with one’s choice of selfhood. The second has to do with the problem of self-determination, or how to gain the requisite control or influence over the social and political institutions that affect one’s life. These challenges are intimately connected to each other. They are also connected to the issue of Muslim participation in American society, socially and politically. This latter point is obvious in the case of self-determination. It becomes equally obvious, however, in the case of self-definition, once it is recognized that the real goal of any act of self-definition is both to affirm one’s subjectivity vis a vis the world around one and to gain public recognition for one’s subjectivity chosen self. Self-definition, in other words, is always and fundamentally a social cum political act; it is never a purely intellectual one. From the outset, the enterprise of Muslim self-definition is complicated by the fact of the heterogeneous make-up of the Muslim community in America. American-born converts (the majority of whom are African-Americans) are a product of American history, as are their hopes, fears, fantasies and proper ambition. They are both repelled by the American experience, by virtue of their history as a marginalized minority, and attracted to it, by the virtue of their connection to a uniquely rich Afro-American historical and cultural tradition. Their search for a boa fide Muslim identity is still in its exploratory stage. To this point, however, the record of successive turns and turnabouts has proved one thing if nothing else: Whatever this Afro-American-Muslim identity turns out to be as a final product, if it is to be life-affirming as opposed to a paralyzing agent, it will have to embrace, however discriminately, rather than ignore the reality and history of African-Americans, just as effectively as it fortifies for them the boundaries between Islam and non-Islam. Foreign-born Muslims, on the other hand, are the heirs of a much older tradition of Muslim identity formation. For them, a basic feature of self-definition is in fact the very preservation of the cultural tradition that has been handed down to them. To be sure, they too are engaged in a process of exploration, as they seek to determine which aspects of the received tradition are essential and which coincidental. But this is done with extreme caution and in the context of a conscious rejection of the proposition that their coming to America imposes upon them any obligation to assimilate. In fact, as one observer has recently noted, coming to America is now seen by many immigrants as the greatest ensurer of the right to remain themselves! 1. Thus, even as the notion of an “American-Islamic” identity gains acceptance among foreign-born Muslim (and especially their children), whatever this “American-Islamic” identity turns out to be, it will have to accommodate, and in part confirm, received tradition. It will not be accorded the authority to override or negate that tradition. As these two groups of Muslims move closer, then, to their respective choices of Islamic identity in America, one wonders if they are not at the same time moving away from each other, seeing how vastly different the sources of their respective new identities are. Both groups are engaged, meanwhile, in a battle against what W.E.B. DuBois referred to as “double-consciousness,” i.e., the seemingly inescapable tendency to look at oneself through the eyes of some other, to “measure one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt...” DuBois saw this phenomenon as contributing to the ineffectiveness (largely perceived as weakness) among blacks, because it foisted upon them a “contradiction of double aims”. The black craftsman, for example, had to struggle, on the one hand, to escape white contempt for being a mere draftsman, while, on the other hand, striving to turn his skills to the needs of his people. This, DuBois observed, could only result in making him a poor craftsman, because “he had but half a heart in either cause”. This double-consciousness and contradiction of double aims are an even greater threat to the Muslim, black, white or immigrant. For the simultaneous struggle against being a Muslim along with the struggle to be a Muslim necessarily reduces the amount of energy devoted to the latter. As such, the threat of double-consciousness has a direct bearing on the matter of salvation and how successfully Muslim can live a life that earn’s God’s pleasure in the Hereafter! Like George Orwell’s, “How many fingers am I holding up Winston?,” this kind of psychological pressure can turn even the clearest Qur’anic verses into matters of doubt and speculation and even the most basic religious obligations into matters of choice. What greater threat could there be to the Muslim and Islam in America? We are brought, then, back to the issues of self-definition and self-determination in the most serious and meaningful sense. And given that both of these are always and necessarily socio-political activities, both foreign-born and American-born Muslims are equally confronted with the question of how they should seek to influence American social and political institutions to the end of gaining public recognition and respect for themselves as Muslims and contribute to the creation of a social reality that is free of double consciousness. Whether in concert with each other, or as distinct and separate movements, American-born and foreign-born Muslims will have to think about and develop approaches to this task. ------------- for full article go to http://ispi-usa.org/policy/policy4.html About Dr. JAckson An American convert to Islam during the 1970s- is originally from Philadelphia. He is an associate professor in Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Prior to coming to Michigan, he completed his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. (1990) in the Department of Oriental Studies and Islamic Near East at the University of Pennsylvania. He specializes in the Islamic sciences of theology, law, and medieval Arabic. He is extensively published within the academia. He is a noted expert of the constitutional jurisprudence of Shihab al-Din-al-Qarafi, whose works revolve around the concepts of constitution, tyranny, and power within Islamic law - topics very relevant today as Muslim countries strive to follow the classical Islamic legal traditions. He has written a book centered around this figure, entitled Islamic Law and the State: The Constitutional Jurisprudence of Shihab al-Din al-Qarafi (1996). Recent published articles center around Mutazilite objectivism, Islamic Law and the sociopolitical reality in the United States, among others. He is a sought after speaker at various law schools throughout the country, and is well-known for his oratory skills. He has been teaching the Seerah, Usul al-Fiqh, and 'History of Islamic Law' courses within ALIM since its inception four years ago. |
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