Qanta Ahmed, MD2013-05-18T22:54:13-04:00Qanta Ahmed, MDhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=qanta-ahmedCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Qanta Ahmed, MDGood old fashioned elbow grease.Pakistan's Polio Program: Suspended at Zero Dark Thirtytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.29363952013-03-28T16:21:16-04:002013-03-29T16:07:10-04:00Qanta Ahmed, MDhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/qanta-ahmed/
Following the Taliban's targeted assassinations of polio workers, Pakistan's polio program in acute collapse. Though the polio program has tentatively reopened under security detail, workers continue to die in the line of duty. In copycat fashion, last month workers were shot dead while vaccinating in Nigeria's Kano province, likely executed by Nigeria's Islamist group, Boko Haram.
I have recently traveled to the SWAT valley to inspect a high-risk health program under Pakistani military protection in KPK's Mingora and Malakand. Even as an experienced traveler to Pakistan, fluent in Urdu and fully veiled as a conservative Muslim woman, I found the situation frighteningly volatile. Neither being an observant Muslim, nor being a volunteer doctor offers protection in Pakistan.
Yet while ruthlessly brutal, the Taliban is highly intelligent. The Taliban specifically target the rights of girls to an education and of women to autonomy, citing both to be "western, un-Islamic" secularization. Since both education and public health are deeply entwined, the Taliban has amplified obstacles to eradicating polio in one of the most difficult regions in the world. In Pakistan, as in many Muslim communities, it is only acceptable for women to enter homes as visitors, particularly in order to counsel a mother. Pakistan's polio program thus relies upon educated (and often young) women going door-to-door to engage with mothers.
Matters are worsened in the wake of Pakistan's recently decentralized public health system. Following Pakistan's parliamentary decision to abolish their Federal Ministry of Health, officials now operate from independent provincial departments after the Ministry was dismantled in June 2012. Less than a month later, the killings sent the newly fragmented health authorities scrambling for a unified response.
Pakistan is one of three remaining countries in the world where polio persists, threatening to trigger global re-emergence. Both Afghanistan and Pakistan have seen a rise in polio after 2002 because of the ongoing Af-Pak conflict. But beliefs pose barriers greater even than armed conflict.
Pakistani parents, like American parents, know "what's best" for their own child. By far the most common reason polio vaccine is not delivered is the refusal of Pakistani parents on the grounds of lack of confidence and strongly held beliefs -- perpetuated by the Taliban -- that the vaccine is "un-Islamic." The Pakistani Taliban continues to peddle commonly held misperceptions that the vaccination is also a covert American sterilization program, conspiracies which uneducated populace is quick to embrace. Even so there is no escaping that America has directly fueled the fire. Both the CIA and Hollywood have compounded to Pakistan's polio problem by feeding into the Taliban's deviant messaging.
The truly deplorable association of vaccination programs with the CIA's mission to capture Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad has damaged Pakistanis' public confidence in vaccinations in general and public health workers in particular while fueling conspiracy theories. "Zero Dark Thirty," claimed by director Kathryn Bigelow to be based on "reporting," misportrays CIA collaborator Dr. Shakeel Afridi's actions as a sham polio eradication program (rather than the real-life sham-Hepatitis B vaccination campaign which was his actual cover). Because of this, "Zero Dark Thirty" unwittingly adds resistance to Pakistan's polio program which now seems even more so (to the uninformed) to be an ongoing CIA operation in some of Pakistan's most conflicted zones. Though the movie is not officially released in Pakistan, nor slated for it, pirated copies are already circulating and, together with media commentary about the CIA mission, deepen cynicism to further endanger polio workers.
Building trust in the mission and the polio vaccine depends now as much on Muslim Diaspora as much as it does on American aid dollars from the Gates Foundation, The Rotary Club and others. It is critical that Muslims -- and Muslim physicians, in particular -- address Taliban intimidation through corrective hybridized public health and religious messaging. If ever there was a time to seek a fatwa, this is it guys. Pakistan's vociferous "Mullah-ocracy" could be put to great effect by issuing edicts supporting the national effort to contain disease and protect Pakistan's children from polio as Islamic and denouncing the Taliban's campaign of execution as profoundly unIslamic.
Meanwhile, as Americans we must ask ourselves how America's best exports -- fantastical military weaponry and Hollywood blockbusters -- converge reality into new fantasies to drive the supercharged anti-Americanism now actively endangering innocent lives in one of the most vulnerable regions in the world.
Sadly, the mercurial Muslim world is quick to enrage with matters deemed "blasphemous" as recent tragic events in Lahore show, though they are yet to turn their attention to Pakistan's Polio program and the Taliban's atrocities exacted against it which not only extinguish Pakistan's dedicated, poorly paid, largely female health professionals but jeopardize hundreds of thousands of Muslim children every day.
Until the Muslim world trains its focus on this challenge to support Pakistan, the Taliban will retain the upper hand and Pakistan's polio campaign will remain suspended at Zero Dark Thirty.]]>Pakistan's Islam Imperils the Public Spacetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.29364172013-03-25T09:45:09-04:002013-03-25T09:51:38-04:00Qanta Ahmed, MDhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/qanta-ahmed/is a stark example of the perils of a public space governed by an 'official' Islam.
Today's Pakistan, originally founded to secure a religious minority and determined by its founder MA Jinnah to be a place where any religion was beyond the provenance of the State, has long abandoned its noble ideals. In present day Pakistan, the State gets to determine whose religion is valid, and whose is not and in doing so fuels the debased violence the world witnessed this week.
Face it: Pakistan is a democracy abducted. Six decades after its formation, through one of the most sustained examples of wholesale civil "lawfare" -- the abuse of the law and legal systems for strategic political or military ends -- Pakistan has rightly become notorious for domestic and international Islamist extremism.
Religious intolerance has become de facto a central component of Pakistani identity. This intolerance is legislated within Pakistan's constitution, rooted in a Presidential decree, no less, when Pakistan introduced new legal definitions defining Muslim identity.
Zulfiqar Bhutto's administration oversaw the passage of Articles 260(3) (a) and (b), defining the Pakistani legal context for the term 'Muslim' while delineating the boundaries of 'non Muslim.' At that precise moment, quite unnoticed, Jinnah's vision of religion, caste or creed being beyond the provenance of the State died a legal and ideological death. Through this Islamist lawfare, the ground was now laid for a self-defined Muslim majority to disabuse any deemed 'not one of them.' Blasphemy had officially become a state-sponsored, legislated blood sport and would lead to the massacres Pakistan is now witnessing.
Pakistan's 'democracy' has fueled extraordinary sectarianism inspired by the unopposed lawfare on its own citizens for decades without incurring significant domestic or any international opposition. Those Pakistanis who dare remind us of these lost ideals often pay the price for their bravery, and memory, in blood.
Enshrined in Pakistan's legislature today, one finds the pitch-perfect template for a nation which acquits gang-rapists to uphold misogyny, bears false witness against the vulnerable and authorizes state-sanctioned religious persecution of both Muslim and non-Muslim minorities.
Pakistan exacts a perfect trifecta of domination through such legal abuse: the use of law to first silence, then punish any speech deemed blasphemous (also known as libel lawfare) and an added component of Islamist lawfare which imposes intolerant elements of Sharia law on the framework of a westernized legal system, chiefly in determining who is adequately Muslim, and who is not.
Lawfare in Pakistan has resulted in both the genesis and deeply unbalanced implementation of the Pakistan's blasphemy laws for which Governor Taseer and Minister Bhatti gave their lives. While claiming to be written as religion-neutral, since the Blasphemy Laws' 1984 enactment, they have never been applied to protect minorities but instead persecute them, empowering mob-driven vigilantism.
Instead of a shelter for minorities, Pakistan has become their lawful executioner. Whether Joseph Colony in Lahore, Abbas Town in Karachi or Model Town in 2010 Lahore, Pakistan is a case in point: When a nation dismembers its own constitution beyond recognition, it can disembowel its own citizens with impunity. Today, Pakistani constitutional law is mere scaffolding for a corrupted Sharia. This ghoulish hybrid -- of Sharia interpreted by fanatics and hollow organs of western constitutional law -- is methodically uprooting justice, diversity and secularism, and, reduced to a rogue democracy, injects Pakistan's constitution with radical contemporary Islamist extremism.
Until Pakistan is willing to examine its constitutional corruption and eradicate the rot at the core of its foundational fabrics which empowers men to segregate state-approved Muslims from all 'others,' there will be more Joseph Colonies, more Model Towns, more Abbas bombings, more politicians murdered, and Pakistan will spiral ever closer to the abyss of extremism which stands poised to devour it. Pakistan, by empowering Islamist intolerance, imperils all in the public space, including the mighty religion of Islam, through constitutionally legislated religious intolerance.]]>Coping With the Sleep Disorders Expected After the Sandy Hook Shootingtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.23089782012-12-15T21:20:55-05:002013-02-14T05:12:01-05:00Qanta Ahmed, MDhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/qanta-ahmed/
While our national and regional political leadership confront their responsibilities and opportunities in protecting Americans by force of legislation, Newtown and the surrounding Connecticut community must confront a new world where nothing feels safe, and nothing remains sacred.
Without doubt, parents, teachers, neighbors, first responders and all of the bereaved are likely already dealing with acute sleep disorders, including insomnia, as the shock of the event fades into insurmountable grief; but even those not immediately affected may experience sleep disruption. During an event of such national sorrow that brings our own president to tears, many of us are sleeping uneasily. Feeling safe, feeling secure and ultimately the ability to abandon self-vigilance are central to healthy sleep. All parents and children around the country, all teachers and principals responsible for children and colleagues, need our help to quickly regain this sense of safety -- if not during the day, then at least during the few hours of sleep they will be trying to get.
Though the initial shock will eventually pass, and the acute insomnia -- both trouble falling asleep and difficulty staying asleep -- in the days and weeks after the event affecting those immediately impacted by the shooting may be evident, and ultimately, if treated quickly, short-lived, children show their psychological disturbances differently and often in a more delayed fashion. Without the ability to express their feelings as readily as adults can verbally, children's trauma may emerge in various behaviors, including in their patterns and behaviors during sleep as well as their imaginary play.
Children are innately programed to sense safety, and for every child their central harbor of safety is their nuclear family -- their parents, their siblings, their home and often the family pet. It is not unusual to notice children asking their parents about the safety and security of the home at times of such crisis, especially if the child is old enough to be aware of the atrocities, but even younger children may actively demonstrate their sense of insecurity.
One young patient of mine, age 7, began sleepwalking shortly after he was an inadvertent witness to his father's intimidation by a criminal. The patient's father was an active-duty detective in a unit prosecuting narcotics crime, and unfortunately one day a known criminal intruded onto the detective's private property, threatening his well-being within earshot of his child. While the family was physically safe, the child had witnessed a loss of security and a threat to the kingpin of the family's safety -- his father. Shortly after, the 7-year-old began asking his father to see if the doors and windows to the property were locked to "keep the bad man out." This became part of his bedtime ritual before the patient came to me for treatment. However, after falling asleep normally, the child began sleepwalking, a "parasomnia" of "slow-wave sleep" or "deep sleep" that occurs normally in the first third of the night. These parasomnias are common in young children up until the age of 12, but can become more pronounced after trauma such as the Sandy Hook shootings. Treatment for this child will include individual psychotherapy with a child psychologist, as well as expert behavioral sleep therapy for the sleepwalking and family therapy to counsel the whole family. In this instance, the child's confidence in the ability of his parents to protect him was a necessary beginning when embarking on healing. Parents could rapidly institute simple measures that included safeguarding the sleeping environment by removing objects that the child could bump into, removing rugs he might trip over in his sleep, locking windows and balconies, and removing sharp-edged furniture from the bedroom. Many of the surviving schoolchildren from Sandy Hook may experience similar parasomnias, which can include the sleepwalking described above and also night terrors, which can be particularly frightening for parents to witness.
During night terrors the child will appear to wake up suddenly from sleep, screaming in a frightening way (so much so that sometimes neighbors can become concerned for the safety of the child). Parents will find their child with eyes wide open, inconsolable and exhibiting signs of intense fear, sometimes with sweating and a rapid heart rate. The child, however, will not recognize the parents, and may not seem responsive even though he appears to be awake and screaming. The key is to understand that the child needs to be safeguarded, gently reassured with verbal and physical contact, and supported until the episode passes. Waking the child up to full alertness is difficult and usually unhelpful because this can increase sleep deprivation, which can make these episodes more frequent. Ensuring the child is safe and settled before leaving the bedroom is all that is required, and in the morning the child will have no recall of the event. Parents are often more shaken than the child about this the next day, and a properly educated parent will be able to cope with this more easily than one who is not informed.
Even the smallest children can sense distress in a home, including emotional distress of grieving parents. Exquisitely sensitive, the child will often respond by not wishing to leave the parent, especially during bedtime, and a return of what we term "stalling" behavior may appear. Stalling is commonly seen in preschool children who want "one more story" or "one more drink of water" before saying goodnight, and is an expression of neediness and a test of the limit setting of the parents. At a time like this, parents are encouraged to provide additional reassurance and indulgences to their children, both to avert the child's sense of vulnerability and in this time, likely more so, to soothe the parent's own sense of wellbeing. "Limit-setting behavior disorder," as we term it in sleep medicine, is very commonly seen and normally readily treated with simple behavioral strategies, but in these first days after Sandy Hook shootings these behaviors should be indulged, in my opinion, until both parents and children feel a returning sense of normalcy. In times of heinous violence it may actually not be unusual for small children to begin co-sleeping with their parents or vice versa, but if it can be avoided and the child made to feel safe in his or her room, this would be preferable to avoid establishing new behaviors that would need to be unlearned later.
In some instances, small children will also demonstrate a renewed fear of monsters, and ask for the parents to check in the closet or check under the bed. Parents should comply and make thorough checks to reassure their children. It is reasonable to consult a sleep specialist for what parents will consider a "regression" of behavior. Often when these children come to me for advice, I prescribe a "make-believe monster spray" that only the child can spray with a gesture before bedtime as a means of restoring a sense of power and control to the child. But this I recommend along with more tangible symbols of safety, including a bedtime nightlight or night lamp and a special blanket, perhaps even a protective toy -- items that the child will collaborate in choosing with the parents as an added emotional investment in his or her sleep environment. These strategies are acceptable and not to be frowned upon, even if parents feel their child is too old for a toy or a nightlight to allow this at a time of distress.
In some occasions with very distressed children, I even go against standard practice and with the permission of the parents, allow the child to co-sleep with a treasured pet if there is one in the home. One of my pediatric patients who was 8 told me about the "incredible feeling of safety" he felt sleeping when he was allowed to go to bed with his big tabby cat. This should be allowed at a time of insecurity and fear. While co-sleeping with pets is considered poor sleep hygiene and can leave to real loss of sleep when the pet disturbs the child or the adult, as a soothing measure -- especially if the pet is beloved -- this can be an enormous source of solace.
We are already seeing interviews of parents describing not only their experiences but also their management of information to their children's awareness of the massacre. These parents are to be commended and admired for putting their children's needs above all other needs. But perhaps a salient recommendation is to avoid or minimize television exposure as much as possible. Broadcast media and repetitive images may embed memories and intensify the experiences of trauma; this data has been replicated in many instances, including in the response of Pakistani children to drone attacks, which can elicit the same response in children whether they witness an event live or on television. Unquestionably, children should be shielded from violent images by parental safeguards on television, and wherever possible allowing the children-only movies or cartoons that will not be interrupted with unpredictable news flashes.
Over time, even these dark days will gradually fade and a new normalcy will arrive, but in the interim, parents and principals and teachers must be aware that support is here for them, too. They, too, could potentially develop their own sleep disorders, which can include significant trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, and waking up earlier than desired. Daytime hours may seem more difficult and distracted, and emotional lability can be widespread, with unexpected tears and difficulty controlling tempers and maintaining attention. Early intervention with doctors and mental health providers can help greatly. Whereever possible, seek out board-certified sleep specialists at an American Academy of Sleep Medicine accredited center that is experienced in the management of sleep disorders. While many Americans have aversions to sleeping medicine, under supervision these medicines may be exactly what is needed to help the parent function in the difficult weeks to months that will follow.
Each of us is dealing with a profoundly violated community, overwhelmed with the sadness and sorrow that each of us experience personally, whether or not we have a direct connection to these events. Bear in mind all of us are especially vulnerable to a loss of faith in humanity and an assault on the safety and goodness of our society.
No matter how grown up we are, we each need reassurance and affirmation that society continues to be secure and safe and a harbor for our lives. Expect some fallibility in ourselves as the days go forward and know that we are all vulnerable to disrupted sleep at such a time. This is true both of us as members of the wider community in the tristate area and as parents and professionals across the nation.
Perhaps most forgotten are members of the media who are especially at risk as they perform their duties gathering the stories that they must bring to America, and articulating our collective shock and horror.
As the days turns to weeks, consider seeking medical attention if trouble falling asleep or staying asleep persists after four weeks or a sense of desolation sets in and fails to leave. Our sleep disturbances are intimate mirrors to the anguish of our daytime distress and none of us must fear seeking assistance as readily for ourselves as we would for our children.
The community returning to Sandy Hook school is going through a unique adjustment that the rest of the nation is witnessing but not experiencing. All of us must support Sandy Hook and the first responders supporting Sandy Hook at this time so that Newtown may once more regain some semblance of peace, both in their long waking hours ahead and the brief respite their private hours of sleep can give them. Until those distant days, know that many professionals are available to help in order to ease at least a fragment of our collective suffering and stand by to assist whether with information, counseling, active treatment, or what America does best: a sense of shared solidarity.
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New York's First Responders are both victims of Sandy and our public servants at some of our most difficult times. At a time of their own distress during our own hour of need, our first responders have never been more humbling in their courage and generosity, never more American.
Certainly, Mayor Bloomberg, Gov. Cuomo and our county executives clearly rose to the occasion and continue to do so. Without question, it is our first responders who have acted above and beyond the call of duty. Some of have reached out to me, during my consultations as their physician, seeking to meet my concerns, once again over their own.
Winthrop University Hospital, where I practice medicine, is home to the World Trade Center Monitoring Program, which serves 2,500 of Long Island's 6,000 first responders who attended and served the nation during 9/11 and in the long months and years since. As a sleep specialist, I am honored to attend many of these service men and women, who are firemen, policemen, FBI personnel and EMS technicians among others. During our consultations, but particularly after Hurricane Sandy, I have been humbled by every encounter with these patients: They are a breed apart in their unwavering self sacrifice and bravery even as they are cold, tired, sick or sleepless in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy.
While much of the nation has already forgotten Hurricane Sandy, this area continues to struggle to address the homeless, bereaved and injured for whom life will never be the same. Non-residents cannot grasp how much the long decade of rebuilding normalcy after 9/11 has already exacted a toll on our communities' finest and bravest.
Our extraordinary first responders have served us both in the recovery process at Ground Zero and since then, in the new post-9/11 climate of security and ever increasing demands of counterterrorism. It is these same officers, firefighters, police and fire chiefs, EMS workers, doctors and nurses who must respond to the most devastating natural disaster to assault this long battered community.
Congressman Peter King, Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, described a member of his community in South Seaford, a mother who had already sacrificed two sons in 9/11, who outlived their untimely deaths to battle her own cancer, only to find, while actively on chemotherapy, her own home devastated by Hurricane Sandy. Rep. King is the first politician to recognize the sequential impact and demands on citizens in this unique part of the country where so much has already been sacrificed by so many. Long an advocate of the World Trade Center First Responders and a proponent of the James Zadroga Bill, few understand the price first responders pay and the debt society owes them better than the Congressman.
While initially most patients couldn't reach my office in Garden City (which was open days after Hurricane Sandy), some did arrive. I immediately noticed who was missing: my first responder population. While I was in my comfortable office, they were out there, rebuilding our community and consoling others, even as they struggled with flood, wind and electrical damage to their own homes themselves.
Later in the week, one first responder made it in, a police officer stationed at the Rockaways. He looked haggard. He had put in a 40 hour work week and an added 52 hours of overtime as the force maintained order in the absence of electrical power.
Concerned about his exhaustion, I enquired about his work. Waiving away my questions, he first asked about my personal circumstances during Sandy and, at the time, the escalating gasoline crisis. After he was satisfied his doctor knew what to do and where to go, he agreed to continue the clinical interview, finally allowing his needs to be met.
Turning attention back to himself, he admitted that now, at age 47, after being on patrol after the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, after responding for months at Ground Zero again as a patrol officer and now dealing with Sandy, he was exhausted from a decade and a half of destruction.
"I'm tired Doc," is all he could say. "Now we are stationed in the Rockaways, each officer a block apart in the pitch black, with a flashlight which we keep off until we hear footsteps approaching, only then can we turn it on to see who it is or else they know where you are." Looters had already approached him, he advised me, on the first night after the storm. I pictured my tired patient, cold, in the dark, perhaps even fearful, standing sentry to protect the abandoned homes and personal properties of the Americans he has protected and served since his youth. While there was resignation and fatigue in his voice, there wasn't a tinge of resentment.
Days later another patient, a retired NYPD officer on disability due to a serious line of duty injury, attended to finally take care of his sleep. After discussing his treatment plan, I asked how he was managing and whether as a retired officer he was called to serve.
"No doc, the force doesn't call us up out of retirement, but I have been doing what I can. I help my children, friends and neighbors, I have a generator and I am running two neighbors off of it. I helped my neighbors move debris from their lawns, I have to, I do what I can." He looked at my puzzled expression uncomprehending, as I wondered why he hadn't stopped serving the public after decades as a first responder, especially when disabled. When do these men and women finally get to be off duty?
We talked about gas shortage, explaining some of my physician colleagues were very badly impacted. "Oh no Doc, can I give you some gas? I have 100 gallons at home in my truck, to take care of my children. It's no problem, have some." He looked at me with real concern.
The offer rendered me speechless. A retired officer, disabled in the line of duty was responding to my distress. Deeply touched, I declined his kind offer.
This has been my experience in attending first responder patients in Nassau County these past two weeks. While our politicians represent the public voice and have done so extraordinarily well, it's the unseen private citizens, the first responders who may be active duty, disabled or retired that are bearing the brunt of recovery and healing from Sandy.
New York remains a place like no other. New Yorkers have rebuilt this community, shoulder to shoulder after the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor, and are doing so again after the worst storm since Hurricane Katrina. While we have elected powerful and competent public officials, it is the strength of the populace which carries the community forward.
While our state's defining city, New York, remains the city that truly never sleeps, New Yorkers are the nation's first responders who never stop responding. Their courage and service defines our nation, and most acutely now, in our darkest hours.
Wherever you are, on wrecked seafronts, in flooded basements, in scorched footprints of houses once homes, I ask you, First responders, to stop, for a moment. Put down your shovels, your ladders, your torches, your pliers, while New Yorkers everywhere stand in awe of you. We, and our president, stop to salute you.]]>The Hunger Games: Muslim Athletes Observe Ramadan at London Olympicstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.17523642012-08-07T17:11:02-04:002012-10-07T05:12:03-04:00Qanta Ahmed, MDhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/qanta-ahmed/
Islam is very much an orthopraxy -- defined more by practices based on belief rather than by belief alone. There are five pillars, or essential practices, central to Islamic belief. The third pillar is sawm, or fasting, during the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims refrain from eating or drinking and sexual activity from before dawn until after dusk.
Of all the pillars of Islam, Ramadan is the one best observed by Muslims who self-report adhering to this tenet above all others. It carries deep meaning for Muslims around the world and Ramadan ushers in a renewed observation of Islamic practices by many Muslims who may be otherwise lax in their actions in the remainder of the year. In a recent survey, 77 percent of American Muslims reported adhering to Ramadan irrespective of their other observations of Islamic pillars. In sum, observing Ramadan is more important to Muslims than any other action defining Islamic belief. Olympians are likely to be no different in this regard.
The spiritual aims of Ramadan are rooted in physical and mental regeneration combined with intensified praying during each day of the month. He or she becomes acutely aware of the bounty from God the Muslim receives each time he breaks his fast. Because the timings of Ramadan depend on the lunar Islamic calendar it advances relative to the Gregorian calendar by approximately 10 days each year. Ramadan therefore falls in every season and at every latitude, resulting in widely divergent durations of fasts and prevailing climatic conditions. This year in London the month falls during some of the longest days of the British summer with more than 17 hours of daylight and peak summer temperatures compounding the challenges of competing while fasting.
Muslims universally understand Ramadan is a mandatory requirement for healthy Muslims, excused only in the event of infirmity or illness. Unsurprisingly, athletes at every level who are committed self-identifying Muslims may feel they cannot compromise either their desire to fast or their need to compete.
The interest in the fasting athlete is rising for several reasons. More and more Muslim countries now participate in the Olympics. Many competing Olympians are now Muslims (though exact numbers of Muslim Olympians at London 2012 are unknown some estimates place the figure at almost 3,500 athletes, not including their Muslim coaches and Muslim officials who may have traveled with them to London). This is against a backdrop of the rising participation in sport globally across the Muslim world, and the impending first FIFA World Cup in 2022 to be held in Muslim Qatar, driving more than $100 Billion in infrastructural development and national sporting programs compelling researchers to examine the impact of Ramadan on athletic performance. Put simply, sport is becoming increasingly important to both the observant Muslim and the countries where they train and plan to compete.
While no Muslim nation has ever hosted the Olympics, more and more Muslim countries have begun hosting major athletic competitions. Because of the predicted growth of the global Muslim population reaching 25 percent of global population by 2022 (according to the Pew Research Center's Forum), when Qatar becomes the first Muslim nation to host the FIFA World Cup tournament, challenges to being an elite athlete and an observant Muslim committed to observing Ramadan will become more common.
Even so, it is only recently that scientific studies have become to examine the effects of Ramadan on athletic performance. The most intense study of the fasting athlete has been performed by FIFA and F-MARC (FIFA's medical research body) through international physician and scientist investigators assessing the fasting Muslim footballers.
Spearheaded by FIFA's dynamic and visionary Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Jiri Dvorak, FIFA and F-MARC have issued consensus recommendations which have just been published in July 2012 in the Journal of Sports Sciences. These findings present the best available recommendations for both the fasting athlete and those managing them.
FIFA and F-MARC have been instrumental in correcting this deficit of scientific knowledge. More than 300 million people in 208 countries are involved in the world's favorite game, including 42 million women, but more importantly, football is the fastest growing sport in the Muslim world, a trend set to continue particularly considering the Pew Forum's predictions on the future growth of an increasingly young Muslim population.
Even casual travel through the Muslim World reveals football is enjoyed by Muslims both as a popular leisure activity in many Muslim countries, and at the highest competitive level with many Muslim players, both male and female, reaching elite international status. Iran and Yemen have their own women's football teams, among many other Muslim nations. In Saudi Arabia football is the most popular sport, with its own federation and more than 36 soccer teams. Even Saudi women play football, though in unofficial teams on private facilities.
Reports of Muslim athletes arriving at the Olympics with clear intentions not to fast for fear of compromising match performance were noted early in the Olympics press coverage. Their decisions (for instance in the Egyptian teams) had been supported by coaches who advised the athletes couldn't possibly calorie load in the restrictions imposed on their schedule by the Ramadan time table. Sometimes their decisions were further supported by religious edicts. The Washington Post has reported the High Egyptian Islamic Council issued a fatwa, excusing their athletes from fasting during coaching or competition. While this is reasonable, these decisions are made out of lack of awareness of the scientific knowledge FIFA has begun to carefully amass.
As part of an all-Muslim team (often with Muslim officials and coaches who themselves understand Ramadan and may be observing it too) the Muslim athlete may be more supported than otherwise. However, many Muslim athletes are welcomed by their non-Muslim colleagues with similar support when the community becomes aware of Ramadan in the best spirits of sportsmanship. London 2012 arranged special meals to be available at the fasting time of suhoor and ensured the food is acceptable (halal) for the Muslim competitors.
The first studies looking at the Fasting Player were the initiative of Dr. Yacine Zerguini, a sports medicine orthopedist, and FIFA Medical Committee member conducted in Algeria, a Muslim majority country, in 2004. Later, Zerguini led efforts to combine research Tunisia, also a Muslim Majority country with the Tunisian Football Association in 2006.
Based on these early data, FIFA concluded the changes in the timing of food intake and sleep patterns during Ramadan had little effect on physical performance in this sample of youth football players observing Ramadan during a residential training camp setting though it is worth noting that match performance was not assessed in this investigation and the players studied were junior players, not elite players at the peak of football performance. FIFA was convinced that further investigation was needed and with the award of the bid for the FIFA World Cup at 2022 their focus on the Muslim footballer intensified.
I was invited to speak at the world's first consensus conference on Ramadan and Football on Nov. 25-26, 2011 in Doha at Aspetar, Qatar's FIFA Accredited Sports Medicine Center. The meeting brought together scientists, physicians and football players to exchange our knowledge and experiences.
Before we even began the scientific sessions, FIFA leadership made clear what every coach and player already knows: the decision to fast is purely personal. Many of us at the meeting were also observant Muslims, but Muslim or not, we all agreed and FIFA's official position is that the autonomy in expression of personal belief is paramount for the Muslim and particularly the Muslim footballer and no official position could be held to obstruct this choice.
Madjid Bougherra, an Algerian national team player, described how he always tried to avoid loss of sleep when fasting caused by long meals at night and therefore elected to eat pasta as a means to quickly replete his carbohydrate stores. High carbohydrate intake complies with current nutritionists' recommendations for players during Ramadan. Bougherra mentioned that he felt the challenges in observing Ramadan were less marked for players in Muslim teams than for those playing in teams where only a minority of players in a team will be Muslim. His made a heartfelt appeal:
"We would indeed be grateful for advice on what to eat and drink and when, also how to best sleep. We need your help, help from scientists and physicians."
Nadir Belhadj, another Algerian professional player, speculated about the impact on match performance and injuries and expressed a need for advice on how he could train long and hard despite the fasting.
"I feel there are for sure more injuries during fasting," he said.
A recent Tunisian study over two seasons did indeed confirm Belhadj's suspicion showing higher injury rates recorded during Ramadan as compared to the pre- and post-Ramadan likely because injuries peak with suboptimal physical preparation, tiredness, sleep loss or lack of training, all situations that might occur with fasting players.
As the final week of the Olympics unfolds in the penultimate week of Ramadan we can be assured that there are more Muslim athletes competing at the apex of their sport than ever before. The most extensive data on how to manage an athlete who wishes to compete and fast has been amassed by FIFA, which is deeply committed to advancing soccer globally, including throughout the Muslim world. Experts and observant Muslims alike agree on one conclusion: that there is no single coping strategy, and in fact a "one size fits all" approach is unlikely to be the solution, even within the same sport.
The Games' coincidence with Ramadan invites us to view a new and refreshing expression of the Modern Muslim as he or she participates in the world's most universal celebration of humanity. As a Muslim I find even more gratifying than the Olympic spirit is the community spirit engendered in the cultural sensitivity and hospitality extended by the global community to the Muslim athletes at London 2012 in particular. More than anything, it is the flexibility inherent to Islam which permits the Muslim to compete even during Ramadan and to make that decision entirely for himself or herself.
Triumphant images of the modern Muslim athlete, whether or not he or she becomes a medalist, not only inspire us here in the West but much more in the Muslim majority world, where the practice and experience of Islam may for many be far from so flexible or rich with opportunity. The 2012 Olympics present for Muslims a rare moment to look in a global mirror and see a self image that fills us with awe and pride and deep humility at the accommodations the non Muslim world makes for each of us.
]]>A Leap Forward for Saudi Arabiatag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.17313402012-08-02T18:55:58-04:002012-10-02T05:12:06-04:00Qanta Ahmed, MDhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/qanta-ahmed/ Sarah Attar, who will compete in the 800 meter, and her fellow countrywoman, Wodjan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani, who will represent the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in judo. Their entrance into the Olympic arena represents a triumph for Saudis and non-Saudis alike: London 2012 marks the first time that female athletes from Saudi Arabia have been allowed by the Kingdom to compete in the Olympic Games. This milestone puts Muslim women center stage, highlighting their increasing empowerment but also the continuing limitations on their rights in many regions. Islamic regimes are increasingly finding themselves torn between the desire to uphold domestic policies that restrict the movements of women, and the desire for full-fledged membership in contemporary international society. The Saudi case suggests that a combination of top-down international pressure and grassroots activism may lead to changes to even the most dogmatic of domestic policies.
Saudi Arabia is a newcomer to the Olympic level of sporting competition, only winning its first Olympic medal in 2000 when Hadi Souan Somayli won silver in the 400-meter men's hurdles. Saudi Arabia, Brunei, and Qatar are the only nations that have never previously entered women in Olympic Games, although both Qatar and Brunei have sent women to the Islamic Women's Games.
Saudi women have little or no way to access the resources necessary to train for Olympic-level competition. Saudi men and boys can attend any of the 153 official sports clubs, regulated by the General Presidency for Youth Welfare, as well as innumerable gyms and spas at hotels. Saudi women and girls, in contrast, are entirely excluded from using these facilities.
Even the most influential Saudis have been unable to overcome the gender divide. In 2009, techno-billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal sponsored Saudi Arabia's first female soccer team, the Jeddah Kings, provoking such intense public backlash that he was forced to dismantle the team. Today, only Jeddah United exists -- an independent and private female sports company with a female basketball team that functions without royal patronage or government support.
Lack of access to any kind of athletic instruction or training facilities is a huge barrier to the development of female Saudi athletes. The few who have succeeded at international levels of competition have trained largely outside the Kingdom. The most well-known example is Dalma Malhas, the 20-year-old equestrian who won the bronze medal at the Singapore Youth Olympic Games in 2010. It appeared that Malhas was going to be Saudi Arabia's first female Olympian for London 2012, but her mare was injured, disqualifying her entry. She trains mostly in Italy, as did her mother, who also competed in show jumping.
Individual women such as Malhas are important, but the arrival of Saudi women into the Olympic arena is largely the result of the work of human-rights groups and the efforts of individual Saudi citizens to advocate for greater access to sports in the Kingdom. NGOs and individual advocates benefited from the rise in international awareness of social issues in Arab regions that followed the Arab Spring. The convergence of international and domestic pressures on Saudi Arabia proved critical. The International Olympic Committee set clear external standards for the Kingdom to meet on female participation, threatening to bar the entire Saudi team from the Games, while a Human Rights Watch report documented grassroots opposition to the Kingdom's highly unequal internal standards.
The Human Rights Watch report, 'Steps of the Devil': Denial of Women's and Girls' Rights to Sport in Saudi Arabia," explains Saudi clerics' religious objections to Saudi women engaging in any sport. The Saudi clergy believes such behavior moves Saudi women down a slippery slope towards the devil. According to the report, Saudi religious scholars claim that allowing Saudi girls and women to enter into sports would invite them to engage in immodest movement, don aberrant clothing, perform in front of spectators, and eventually come into direct contact with unrelated men in mixed settings, all of which leads to immorality and the irreparable desecration of the purity of Saudi women.
Other clerics, such as Sheikh Abdullah-Al Mani, a member of the senior scholars' council and advisor to the Royal Court, have implied that vigorous movement -- particularly that required by basketball and football -- threatens the health of a "virgin girl." This is an especially profound deterrent in the Saudi shame-and-honor-centered culture, which places extraordinary medico-legal value on virginity in unmarried women, as determined by an intact hymen.
Saudi King Abdullah appears open to the messages of such human-rights reports, considering his advancement of many reforms for women, both before and following his ascension to the throne. His decision to allow female participation at the Olympics is another step in the right direction. Related steps include the creation of the first shadow Shura Council for women, the first shelters and hotlines for domestic-abuse and child-abuse victims, the first co-educational post-graduate university (the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology), and the promise of municipal voting rights for women in years to come.
Some complain that these reforms are largely symbolic. Symbolic moves, however, can be extremely powerful, triggering real and widespread change. Symbolic power may be even more significant when made by the leader of a country that is a religious and political focal point for much of the Muslim world.
Saudi Arabia's decision to allow female Saudi athletes to compete in the Olympics is a step forward on several levels. First, for female athletes already primed to compete, a favorable decision only 31 days before the commencement of the Games came as a relief. Second, this ruling will also benefit the majority of Saudi women by making it more difficult for the regime to justify gender inequality in access to sport, and, perhaps, in other spheres of Saudi society. In choosing to acquiesce to the gender-equality standards of the Olympic Games, a state that has appeared largely immune to external or internal pressure in the past -- by way of its immense wealth and entrenched cultural mores -- now shows a significant degree of vulnerability to international norms.
Whatever the motives behind their recent decision, the Saudis have clearly yielded to the demands of the outside world and, more importantly, to their own increasingly influential vox populi. When Saudi female athletes march with their nation's flag overhead, it will be cause for celebration for the sports community, and for women everywhere. The Saudi women athletes who travel to the London 2012 Games, no matter how few in number and how far from winning a medal, open a door to a wider world for Muslim women: a world of athletic competition, improved health, and greater equality. The international community should work to ensure the names of Wodjan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani and Sarah Attar are publicized around the world, and, most importantly, within Saudi Arabia, so that this milestone is not kept hidden from aspiring Saudi female athletes.
Special thanks to editor Ms. Claire Schacter who invited me to submit this article for publication for OpenCanada for the Canadian International Council where it was first published here.]]>Muslims Combating Islamism: Exercising the Bare Minimum of Faith in an Age of Political Correctnesstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.16682462012-07-12T15:52:48-04:002012-09-11T05:12:10-04:00Qanta Ahmed, MDhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/qanta-ahmed/I testified in the investigative hearings held by the House Committee on Homeland Security examining radicalization within the Muslim American community.
I testified because, as an anti-Islamist Muslim, I believe exposing a wrong is the bare minimum of my faith. I testified because I have seen the full spectrum of radicalization: from silent approval, to overt sympathies for Islamist ideologies, to the end point of suicidal violence among Pakistani child militants. But most of all, I testified because of my patients here in New York.
At Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola, I am part of a team that attends the World Trade Center First Responder patient population of Nassau County. Long Island is home to 6,000 of the nation's 40,000 first responders, many of whom feel long forgotten by America. Each year, Winthrop cares for 2,500 of these Americans, relieved of the financial burden of their health costs by the James Zadroga bill, spearheaded by Congressman Peter King, R-N.Y., who is also chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.
Rescuers by profession, my patients are members of the NYPD, the FBI, the FDNY, the New York Federal Crime Bureau and other law enforcement agencies. Some are retired, others still work and many are now disabled because of their service to our nation. Sadly, these Americans have granted me painful insights into the indiscriminate burden of radical Islamist acts, insights to which few will ever be privy.
I thought often about these men and women when I visited Pakistan this spring to see "Sabaoon," a school in the Northwest Frontier town of Malakand. There, working with a highly skilled mental health team, Dr. Feriha Peracha deprograms Pakistani child Taliban operatives by rebuilding their psyches.
One boy stands out in my memory in particular. Dressed in a brand new cricket strip, sporting Pakistan's bottle-green "Boom Boom" jersey popular nationwide and glowing from the match he had just played with other Sabaoon students, he looked much as my own brothers did at his age -- active, animated and well looked after.
Later, I learned he was hoping to join a cricket academy to pursue his passion. But within moments, the illusion of confidence fell away as this 18-year-old boy described to me his seduction into, and near annihilation by, the Pakistani Taliban. Speaking to me in Urdu, the account was unnervingly intimate.
He was 15 when it began, the eldest of five, and the son of a father who supported the family with his meager earnings at a small government post. He lived in a four-roomed mud-walled house with his siblings and parents. Gradually lured by an older Pakistani boy with tales of a purer, "more noble" Islam during his long walks to his village school, the boy soon ran away to join the Taliban, dreaming of a higher divine mission.
A Taliban scout told him that the group had purified Pakistan of drugs and alcohol and was leading the country toward a "purer" and "true" Islam. That message appealed to him. Convinced he was serving Islam, the boy found himself immediately relocated from concealed site to concealed site, sometimes spending nights in the open air in Pakistan's harsh but beautiful Swat valley, other times being sequestered in squalid hostels and other such markaz (centers). He never spent more than one night in each locale. This situation made it nearly impossible for his family to find him, and stopped him from making new friends who might influence him away from the Taliban.
He participated in minor missions at first, and then major ones. But it wasn't until he expressed homesickness one Eid holiday and a desire to see his mother that his career as a leader among Taliban was redirected into becoming a suicide operative. The boy was too much of a risk should he break away and become an informer.
He talked about his tarbiyyat, or religious training, in detail. I imagined rote memorization of the Quran. Instead, he learned the correct use of a handgun, the deployment of a grenade and the successful detonation of a suicide jacket. He even had training in rocket launchers, AK47s and LMGs (light machine guns). As I sat opposite him, he carefully demonstrated this knowledge to me, miming the relevant gestures to me, a novice when it comes to weapons. He explained the strategy behind his training: that when approaching his final target, he may be confronted by a police officer and would have to fend him off with his pistol. Law enforcement thus dispatched, he knew to throw the grenade, kept at arm's length in his shalwar (trouser) pocket, into a packed crowd, and, as he watched the crowd flee from the grenade, he would then run into the same panicked masses as he detonated his suicide jacket, achieving maximum carnage.
Finally, he described his ultimate surrender moments from detonation in a local Shiite mosque. As he entered and assessed the surroundings of Muslim men in prayer, he recognized these people. His targets "were Muslim too," he said. He suddenly feared for his own spiritual salvation. His voice lowered as he explained the relief he felt when he turned himself in to the lone, unwary police officer nearby and revealed his weapons. He endured a vicious beating to the heart with the butt of the policeman's rifle and then months of detention by Pakistan's secret police, the ISI.
Though he had given himself up some years earlier, seduced by the Islamist narrative at the age of 15, I discovered he had already wrought extraordinary destruction.
He had participated in a previous attack that killed five Pakistani Frontier Corpsmen and had helped kidnap 11 others in a raid on a military camp. The Taliban took the hostages. He had been part of a separate raid in which more than 100 people from a local tribal court were executed.
Americans Susceptible
The King investigative hearings on radical Islam showed how the same narratives that drove the young Pakistani to violence are alive in the United States today, thriving amid similarly vulnerable, disconnected and indoctrinated youth. Such Islamist radicalization is ongoing in our civilian, military and prison community, as repeated findings from the investigative hearings have uncovered.
Unfortunately, where there should be uproar and carefully targeted actions in response to these critically important findings, we remain mired in political correctness by refusing to identify our enemies' driving ideology.
Islamists distract the discussion from the root of the problem by focusing our attention on what they call "Islamophobia," arguing that the world is using a broad brush to describe Muslims.
Attorney General Eric Holder demonstrated this pandering in his May 2010 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, when he attempted to discuss failed Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad's potential motives, while avoiding the term "radical Islam." Holder's agonizing dance around the issue demonstrates just how difficult it has become to talk about the ideology fueling so many terror plots, now that the highest levels of government have banned any discussion of the role of radical religious interpretation. While political correctness may be cloyingly comfortable, reassuring even, it can prove all too deadly, as testimonies in these investigative hearings on radical Islam have shown.
In one of the House radicalization hearings, retired Marine Corps veteran Daris Long testified how political correctness masked Islamist extremism. His son, Army Pvt. William Long, was killed in an Islamist terrorist attack on his recruiting station in Little Rock, Ark., yet the military refused to name it as such, and the shooter was tried in state court rather than on federal terrorism charges.
"The blatant masking and disregard of the facts not only endanger American citizens of non-Muslim faith but also those of Muslim heritage who do not adhere to the extremist beliefs demonstrated by a militant and political form of jihad," Long said.
Melvin Bledsoe testified to the "brainwashing" of his son -- a Muslim convert -- who murdered Pvt. Long and injured another in what I, as a Muslim, call an act of terror.
"This was a Jihadi attack on infidel forces," Carlos Bledsoe, the shooter, wrote in a letter to the judge in his case.
As the politically correct rail against the sound intelligence identifying plots in evolution (and the necessary counter-measures also deemed politically incorrect), they collude with the violent and non-violent Islamists in their foil as Muslims. Masquerading as the "peaceful" translators and "owners" of Islam, Islamists exploit political correctness and, by brandishing the charge of Islamophobia, deter vital scrutiny.
Most recently, pseudo-advocacy groups purportedly representing mainstream American Muslims lobbied the Obama administration to "sanitize" intelligence language used within the FBI to purge references to Islam. This approach only limits debate, scrutiny and examination of Islamist ideologies, both violent and nonviolent.
Our leadership has bowed to such pressures. The 2010 Quadrennial Homeland Security Review never mentions "Islamist" or "Islamic terrorism" in 108 pages. This is in keeping with President Obama's vision, which, according to then Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Policy David Heyman, "made it clear as we are looking at counterterrorism that our principal focus is al Qaeda and global violent extremism, and that is the terminology and language that has been articulated" by President Obama and his advisers.
In contrast, Pakistan, a nation fighting the highest prevalence of Islamist radicalization, has no such qualms. In fact, the deprogramming at Sabaoon specifically addresses religious scholarship as an area of counter extremism -- identifying and dismantling disordered beliefs and replacing them with healthy, nonviolent Islamic ideals.
This goal cannot be accomplished by shying away from religiously charged language.
Political correctness is a serious obstacle in articulating the Islamist threat here in the United States. Refusing to accurately name it will not make the threat go away. Simplifying complex ideas distilling political Islamism and Islam into one sensitive taboo, rather than building clarity, inflames sentiments and drives polarity.
In this climate, Muslims like me -- those who accept Islam yet revile Islamists -- are rendered voiceless. I am not alone in my practice of Islam, an Islam that values and cherishes other faiths as equally legitimate and, indeed, reminds the Muslim that to each believer is sent his own Law and his own Way, whether a follower of Jesus, Moses, Siddartha or others. As a Muslim, my Islam reminds me, that according to our Maker we cannot place judgment on the belief systems of fellow People of the Book. They must only judge themselves by their own laws and ways and not by the Quran.
My Islam particularly condemns the rampant exercise of violence on the non combatant civilians which includes all nonmilitary personnel, all children, women, elderly and disabled and further identifies no war as ever Holy, only just or unjust. We also understand that jihad has far greater meaning as an internal struggle for self improvement and relief of personal and community suffering than frank warfare for political or military gain. By these standards which Islam gives me, I as a Muslim can repudiate radical Islamism (which relies on the condemnation of all non Muslim elements and all Muslims who dare to balk at their extreme ideology) without wavering in my belief in Islam or failing in my duty as a Muslim.
The government's adherence to political correctness doesn't make room for this distinction because it avoids any reference to radical Islamism.
By avoiding nuance, we fuel simplification. By banning U.S. law enforcement agencies from using the word "Islamist" and other charged language that correctly identifies a manufactured fictional Islam as the origins for Islamist ideology, we have compelled our agencies to kowtow to political correctness. Even their Saudi counterterrorism colleagues, in the cradle of Islam, refer to Islamist terrorists as "Jihadists." This term implicitly identifies their ideological roots within Islam, albeit a distortion of the faith. While discourse in America is hampered by such "propriety," the Saudis, calling a spade a spade, don't stand on such futile ceremony.
Blindfolded by political correctness, we remain vulnerable. Counter warfare on ideological battlefields begins with widening the debate, both on Capitol Hill in congressional committee hearing rooms and on the nation's opinion pages which are increasingly reluctant to host this debate. Without doubt, these investigative hearings are the first public foray examining the divide between Islam and Islamism in contemporary America and as Muslims naming this divide we embrace an Islamic duty. As the Prophet Mohammed (SAW) once said:
"Whoever sees a wrong and is able to put it right with his hand, let him do so; if he can't, then with his tongue, if he can't, then with his heart. That is the bare minimum of faith."
It's that simple for a Muslim. Because I see a wrong, and because I am Muslim, combating Islamism asks me for the bare minimum of my faith, as it does for all Muslims in America if their actions are to match their words as believers in Islam.
This column was originally published as a special to the Investigative Project on Terrorism. Qanta Ahmed is a physician and author of 'In the Land of Invisible Women.' ]]>Pakistan and the Policing of Belief: Islamist Lawfare Abducts Democracytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.15642902012-06-06T11:59:54-04:002012-08-06T05:12:10-04:00Qanta Ahmed, MDhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/qanta-ahmed/The Lawfare Project defines lawfare as 'the use of the law as a weapon of war, or more specifically, the abuse of the law and legal systems for strategic, political or military ends." But lawfare also includes the "manipulation of the legal system to achieve purposes other than or contrary to, that for which they were originally enacted..."
Pakistan, America's ailing ally, on closer examination is a democracy abducted by Islamist lawfare. Six decades after its formation, through one of the most sustained examples of wholesale civil lawfare, Pakistan has rightly become notorious for domestic and international Islamist extremism fueled on demagoguery.
Worse, Pakistan's democracy has been waging unopposed lawfare on its own citizens for decades without incurring international opposition. Through this particularly breathtaking civil lawfare, religious intolerance has become a de facto component of Pakistani identity.
Human rights violations have been legally ratified into Pakistan's constitution based on the supremacy of Sharia law as Islamist Pakistanis in power interpret, in stark, contrast to Pakistan's pluralist ideals at its inception. Those Pakistanis who dare remind us of these lost ideals, like Governor Taseer -- murdered for defending a Christian from false accusation of blasphemy -- pay the price for their bravery, and memory, in blood.
The authorship of Governor Taseer's felling is enshrined not in bullets but bylaws. The labyrinthine rewriting and ultimate subjugation Pakistan's constitution is an unparalleled exercise in Islamist lawfare ensuring Pakistan both polices belief, and murders in its name.
The director of the Lawfare Project, acclaimed human rights attorney and documentary movie maker Brooke Goldstein, Pakistan's lawfare exacts a perfect trifecta of domination through legal abuse: the use of law to first silence, and then punish, any speech deemed blasphemous (also known as libel lawfare) and an added component of Islamist lawfare imposing intolerant elements of Sharia law on the framework of a westernized legal system. Her recent book (co-authored with Aaron Meyer) Lawfare: The War Against Free Speech navigates the hazards of Islamist lawfare for any journalist who dares approach Islamism as a subject of scrutiny.
Today Pakistani constitutional law is mere scaffolding for a mutated Sharia. This ghoulish man made (not divine) hybrid is monstrous in both intention and execution.
Despite this overt abuse of the rule of law, Pakistan has been celebrated by the United States (and others) as a legitimate democracy. Worse, Pakistan has been invited to sit on UN Human Rights panels including the United Nations Human Rights Council (from 2006 to 2011). Emboldened by such acceptance, Pakistan leads OIC efforts to broaden the application of abusive blasphemy laws across the world, under the false guise of 'protecting' Islam.
Cannibalistic civil lawfare advanced by Pakistan's Islamists has resulted in both the genesis and violent implementation of the Pakistan's blasphemy laws, the most notorious in the world. While claiming to be written as religion-neutral, since their 1984 enactment, these laws have never been applied to protect minorities but rather their persecution.
The erosion of freedom of speech and press in Pakistan is directly derivative of Islamist lawfare, guaranteeing the stranglehold wielded by Islamists and their backers: ruthless interest groups, autocratic feudal interests, and seditious extremist religious clergy.
Pakistan was once conceived as a shelter to minorities from religious extremism and stated as such in its inaugural constitution in 1956, which was categorical about this belief -- based on UN ideals. Sadly, these ideals would die in their infancy.
Muhammed Ali Jinnah (Pakistan's founding father) was a staunch democrat and conceived Pakistan as a Muslim state with welfare, community and popular sovereignty as its foundational principles. Jinnah's words -- three days prior to Pakistan's independence -- emphasize the principle of religious tolerance as the bedrock of the new state. As President of the Constituent Assembly, he addressed future Pakistanis at The Karachi Club:
"You are free, you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed -- that has nothing to do with the business of the State."
Yet since then, the history of the malleable Pakistani legislatures -- molded in the hands of masterful rogues -- truly horrifies. I direct concerned readers to Amjad Mahmood Khan's comprehensive treatise in the Harvard Human Rights Journal, and his 2009 congressional testimony on persecution in Pakistan; to the definitive volume Silenced authored by Paul Marshall and Nina Shea, and to David F. Forte's 1994 work Apostasy and Blasphemy in Pakistan, published in the Connecticut Journal of International Law.
Obstructed almost from inception by Pakistan's orthodox clerics, the state secularism Jinnah aspired towards was destined to fail. Sophisticated fundamentalists, aware that targeting Pakistani non-Muslims would now be too fraught with risk with the world's eye on the nascent Muslim state, instead, trained their focus on a little known minority of moderate Muslims: the pacifist Ahmadi Muslims, avowed rejectionists of violence.
Claiming Ahmadi Muslims contested the primacy of the Prophet Mohammed (a fallacy), they targeted this peaceful minority, in a brilliant exercise in Islamist Lawfare. In 1962 after decades of anti Ahmadi acts including destruction of property, discrimination, violence and intimidation, the first seeds of Pakistan's Islamization arrived when the religious clergy, (non-elected religious leaders of mainstream Pakistani Sunni majority) and the Advisory Council for Islamic Ideology added a 'repugnancy clause' -- carte blanche to declare any law repugnant to Islam. Even though the Council's functions were putatively 'advisory,' their recommendations were swiftly became constitutional law.
Extremist Sunni majority Muslims were now both owners of the culture and authors of its laws empowered by Presidential decree rather than an electorate. A 1974 amendment to the constitution to shore political capital for Prime Minister Zulfikar Bhutto and seek approval of the middle classes and religious radicals (while both appeasing clerics and secure his own legitimacy) advanced this concept of 'proprietary' Islam.
Knowing bigotry would further cement his power, under Bhutto's watch, by presidential decree, Pakistan introduced new legal definitions defining Muslim and non Muslim identity. Islamist lawfare laid the ground for a self-defined Muslim majority to disabuse any deemed 'not one of them.'
In 1978 President Muhammad Zia Al Haq legislated a separate electoral system for non-Muslims. Disclosure of religion became required prior to casting a ballot under Pakistani law (and still remains a requisite today). Additionally, only 10 of 211 parliamentary seats were reserved for all Pakistan's minorities, which constituted 5% of Pakistan's 187 million populace ensuring their electoral weight remain negligible.
Though Christians dominate, Pakistani minorities also include Ahmadi Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Jews, Baha'is, the Zikri Muslims and Zoroastrians. Ahmadi Muslims, however, were specifically disempowered among all Pakistani minorities because they couldn't vote in elections without renouncing their faith. For these committed Muslims this became an impossible choice, and henceforth Ahmadi Muslims were effectively denied legislative representation: faith-apartheid had entered the electoral system in a 'democracy'.
A final assault on religious tolerance would arrive in the form of the 1984 amendment to the Pakistani constitution in Haq's tireless efforts to permanently entomb Sharia law into the corpus of legislature, placing interpretation firmly in the hands of the ferocious Islamist theocracy Haq had empowered.
So effective was this empowerment that the Pakistani theocracy accomplished what even Saudi Arabia, Iran, Somalia or Afghanistan have not: Pakistan revised the basic oath a Muslim takes in profession of faith -- the only Muslim nation to do this. In Pakistan, it is insufficient merely to profess 'belief in one God and that Mohammed is his Messenger' in order to become Muslim. Instead, to avow oneself a Pakistani Muslim, one must also renounce, by name, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement, an astounding amendment of Islam's near 1500 year-old first pillar of belief.
A second injunction followed, even more problematic for minority Pakistanis. Passed by parliament, classical Sharia was now named as supreme to all other influences in the nation's law, overarching even the very constitution which first spawned its legitimacy.
Haq now gave the Federal Sharia Courts jurisdiction to scrutinize and eradicate any law 'offensive' to Islam. In under a decade, portions of 55 federal laws and 212 provincial laws were dismantled, all found 'contrary' to Islamic law. Soon presidential decrees empowered Pakistan's Federal Sharia Court to authorize as legitimate criminal ordinances passed by Pakistan's parliament.
Five ordinances targeted religious minorities specifically: a law criminalizing blasphemy; a law punishing the defilement of the Quran; one denouncing any insult to the family companions or personage of the Prophet; and two laws expressly targeting Ahmadi Muslims' activities. Collectively these are called 'The Blasphemy Laws.'
Ahmadi Muslims now became constitutionally prohibited from identifying themselves as Muslim in any way, prevented from all forms of active worship as Muslims, their translations of the Quran were destroyed, their books advocating interfaith dialogue and coexistence deemed illegal: all gross violations of the citizen's right to free speech, religious self-expression and private worship.
Unsurprisingly, over 40% of all arrests under the Blasphemy Laws have been of Ahmadi Muslims. Though no one has been executed by the state for blasphemy, by late 2009, 32 individuals were murdered by mob violence after accusation of blasphemy, proof that the laws incite vigilante violence. This number continues to grow. Be clear. In Pakistan it is now legal to persecute a minority into extinction. Pakistan is now constitutionally empowered to persecute any individual deemed non-Muslim, or simply 'not the right kind' of Muslim.
Both Muslims and non-Muslims have suffered. Over one hundred Christians have been arrested for blasphemy since the laws were enacted. Some were forced to flee overseas for their safety. One Christian was found dead while in prison, apparently tortured and beaten while awaiting trial. Another, a Roman Catholic bishop, committed suicide outside a Pakistani courtroom protesting the arrest of a Christian charged with blasphemy. More often the anti-blasphemy laws are used to intimidate and unjustly 'resolve' property or land disputes and once charged (often on hearsay) under Pakistani constitutional law 'blasphemers' are punishable by death. Even if released on clemency, the accused are likely to be lynched.
The first nation conceived as a democracy for Muslims has failed irretrievably at a time when the world hungers for alternatives to crumbling Islamic theocracies. Be warned: Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim state, follows. Like Pakistan, Indonesia legislates belief while turning a blind eye to vigilantism and intolerance centered on tiny disenfranchised minorities. Like Pakistan, much of this paradigm shift from Indonesia's former secularist pluralism to legislated Islamism is driven by Indonesia's criminal blasphemy provision Article 156(A) of the Penal Code. Put more crudely, Indonesia is the 'before' picture, Pakistan is the 'after.'
While America has infused massive monies and munitions into Pakistan, Pakistan's internal apparatus disempowers precisely those Muslim moderates who could provide a counter-narrative to the fire-breathing Islamists which drive Islamist terror both in acts and ideology. Covert and overt Islamist lawfare has steered us to these seamless, constitutional superhighways to religious extremism, demanding we all learn more not only about Islamists but their skillful deployment of lawfare in the guise of democracy.]]>The Muslim Woman at Play: FIFA, the Olympics and the Veiltag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.15643252012-06-05T11:06:09-04:002012-08-05T05:12:28-04:00Qanta Ahmed, MDhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/qanta-ahmed/
The push to allow veiled Muslim women to compete has long emanated from the Muslim world, despite its lack of egalitarianism towards all women in their societies. Muslim majority countries have diligently petitioned FIFA (football's international governing body) to allow Muslim women to wear the hijab while playing professional soccer. But just as FIFA strives to become more flexible in the interpretation of its laws, ultra-orthodox Wahabi Saudi Arabia, the cradle of Islam and the apical authority of Sunni Islam, has announced Saudi women will once again not represent their nation at the Olympics.
The veiled sportswoman elicits strong passions from both perspectives. Its high time objectification of Muslim women by Muslims ends -- Muslim women who are athletes should be seen and treated as the athletes they are rather than symbolic veiled icons of Islamist ideologies.
Despite medical and political misgivings, on March 3rd 2012 the IFAB (The International Football Association Board (IFAB), the body that determines the Laws of the Game of association football) sanctioned a Dutch designed 'velcro-opening' 'safe' headscarf for players and officials. At a recent meeting in May this prototype was found to be dangerous for active play and new research is invited. A final ruling by the FIFA Executive Committee is expected on July 5th this year but pressure is mounting for the legitimized right to be veiled while playing soccer.
Safety aside, to my mind a far greater principle is at stake here. Sport in general and soccer in particular has always prided itself on rising above religious and ethnic conflicts. Committed to its ability to bring the world together through sport, FIFA specifically has long banned players from wearing religious symbols on the field.
Why is the veil any different?
Permission to wear the veil is not a gain for religious tolerance, as some argue, but a loss of the egalitarian ideas that have long defined the world's favorite game. Noticeably, this concession fails to impact Saudi Arabia, the fulcrum of the worlds major Muslim sect-Sunni Islam and the progenitor of much Islamist ideology.
In favor of permitting Muslim women to wear the veil while playing competitive soccer, we must acknowledge (while it may seem retrograde to some) the veiled Muslim woman athlete actually strikes a blow for gender equality in her own society. If FIFA were to uphold ban on the veil during play, these women will be excluded from the sport unless they abandon veiling, a choice some Muslim women regard impossible to make. Certainly by allowing veiled Muslim women to play soccer, FIFA welcomes women into the sporting arena often when their countries of origin lack access to sport of any kind for its women, as Saudi Arabia's stark example illustrates.
Though many Westerners may see the veil as a symbol of oppression, advocates for veiling envision the veil as a paradoxical tool of liberation, literally permitting women to move in public spaces otherwise denied them by restrictive societies, cultural mores or conservative family values. These freedom afforded by a veil only became clear to me after I myself lived in Saudi Arabia, where legislated by law, once I was veiled I was free to move throughout Saudi society, without my veil I couldn't leave my compound -- I was literally brought to a standstill.
FIFA's relationship to the veil (and indeed much of competitive sport) has been short-lived but complex. Demands to allow veiling on the soccer pitch first emerged in 2007 when an 11-year-old Canadian Muslim Asmahan Mansour, was prevented from playing by the Quebec Soccer Federation after she refused to remove her headscarf. At the time FIFA supported the ruling issuing a formal ban on the head-coverings as religious, citing its bylaws forbidding players from displaying religious or political symbols of any kind.
By April 2010, FIFA had reiterated its position, announcing a planned ban of the hijab and other religious symbols during the 2012 Olympics. This ruling excluded the Iranian women's soccer team from competing. Because Iran mandates all women players to cover in full tracksuits, headscarves and neck warmers, the players were doubly disadvantaged -- even if they had chosen to play unveiled, their national authorities forbid them from representing Iran unveiled.
Responding to the protests of the Iranian soccer leadership at the exclusion of their players, FIFA relented, permitting a FIFA-approved 'cap' to be worn in place of the hijab. Compromise had begun.
Nonetheless in June 2011, defying the newly allowed cap, the Iran women's team appeared on pitch fully veiled immediately forfeiting an Olympic qualifier against Jordan.
Rather than deterring demands to wear the veil, this incident intensified the debate, which was quickly championed by Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan (the half-brother of the ruling Monarch) and a FIFA Vice President of the Asian Soccer Federation.
As a practicing Muslim woman I wholly disagree. I believe there are strong arguments against permitting the veil on the pitch. First, its safety during play remains unclear. At the recent FIFA-Aspetar summit on Ramadan and Football in Doha, Qatar this winter -- the first symposium to examine the health impact of Ramadan on soccer -- scientist and physicians gathered to look at specific challenges facing the observant Muslim soccer player.
In this closed forum in which I was a participant, FIFA medical executives expressed serious health concerns. The head represents 25 percent of the body's surface area, imperative in cooling the extreme heat generated during intense exercise. A veil may impede this, particularly in hot climates or during extreme exertion. The veil poses a risk during a tackle, hyper-extending the neck, jeopardizing the cervical spine and other critical anatomic structures at the juncture of the head and neck, perhaps even threatening spinal cord injury if a player suddenly grabs her opponent's veil. Deaths have already been documented in other recreational settings at the time all thought to be 'unprecedented,' until they sadly transpired. FIFA Medical executives recommended careful study on these issues was urgently needed.
Nevertheless forces pushing for veiling on the pitch are growing. Football is the fastest growing sport in the Muslim world, a trend likely to continue. More critically, in 2022, the Wahabi State of Qatar will host the World Cup, the world's first Arab nation to do so, by which time (according to the Pew Research Center's Forum) a 1.9 billion or (24.6 percent of the projected global population) will be Muslim.
Whether or not they live in Muslim majority nations, more and more Muslim women will encounter new challenges when observe their religiosity while they follow their passion for sport.
Yet just at the moment football in the Muslim world is poised to explode, opportunist politicking threatens to confine the very women football can elevate. Worse Muslim royalty chooses to selectively advocate for the veiling of female sportswomen before advocating for the right for all Muslim women to play sports in the most fundamental non-competitive settings.
By demanding the veil as a vehicle into the soccer or the Olympics neo-orthodox Muslims place the onus on FIFA or the IOC instead of other stakeholders -- the Islamist proponents of mandatory veiling valued in ritualistic cultures defined by Wahabi sympathies. Those seeking a symbolic victory for Islamism create an additional barrier for women to enter the athletic arena -- 'You cannot represent our nation without a veil, and you cannot participate in a FIFA/IOC tournament unless first veiled.' This barrier is additive to all the social resistance already present towards Muslim women in sports
By accepting the veil as a 'cultural norm' for Muslim women (one more often enforced by social mores and legislation than by personal choice) rather than the incandescent religious symbol it truly is, FIFA has been capitulated into giving up precious apolitical ideals. And as we can see, Muslim majority countries feel confident in calling for such demands even as their fellow Muslim majority nations prohibit half of all Muslims -- women -- from any form of competition.
Permitting the hijab while playing soccer irreversibly compromises soccer's apolitical ideals and is a fundamental mistake. Until the arrival of the veil, no other space is as passionately defended to remain uncontaminated from sectarianism as football.
But FIFA is hardly to blame. Speaking as a Muslim woman, change should not be on the shoulders of FIFA but instead firmly planted upon the cultural expression of faith that puts these female athletes in this untenable position, one advocated and enforced solely by conservative men.
While I feel sympathy for female Muslim athletes who cannot play if they are not veiled, veiling is not an inviolable human right whereas the right to movement, including exercise and play very much is.
Whatever princes and potentates may claim, Islam speaks for itself. Islam does not encompass the concept of veiling in a piece of cloth, but rather a demeanor of modesty, demanded of both men and women. No specific item of clothing is described in the Quran pertaining to the veil. Nowhere does veiling appear in the five pillars central to Islamic belief. Veiling is a cultural value, not an Islamic one. Furthermore, during his lifetime the Prophet Mohammed advocated competitive play for both men and women, advising that such play should even be part of healthy, joyful marriage.
By coercing FIFA to yield their principles by falsely stating the veil is a cultural icon inseparable from the Muslim woman (including on the pitch) it is the neo-orthodox Islamists who have secured a colossal victory, one which signifies the encroaching public occupation of a constructed Muslim identity by Islamists. Their victory has brought an institution of extraordinary ideals into compromise. This victory comes at a price of one of the West's dearest ideals: egalitarianism and freedom from gender apartheid. Instead, in pursuit of well-intentioned but hapless tolerance we find ourselves pandering to Islamist ideals as we stand by powerless to intervene on behalf of the Saudi woman who seeks only to move and play as an athlete.
If we allow FIFA to abandon its profound tenet -- 'For the Game, For the World,' we will find we have blown the final whistle on the power of football to unite an increasingly divided world. The game will be well and truly over. And while our 'tolerance' for the veil may feel good, it influences not an iota the most oppressive manifestations of Islamist ideology. We have therefore cowered to little more than window-dressing in place of true engagement with Muslim women athletes. Sadly we deceive only ourselves as Muslim women, the objects of this struggle, bear passive and silent witness.]]>The Evolution of an Anti-Islamist Muslimtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.15662002012-06-03T13:41:57-04:002012-08-03T05:12:17-04:00Qanta Ahmed, MDhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/qanta-ahmed/
Matters were brought into particularly sharp relief for me on that day, because I was in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia when the Towers fell. Within hours, I discovered my sentiments of loss and sorrow were not widely shared, either by Saudi colleagues or by fellow Muslim expatriate workers, many of whom had been trained in New York City like myself.
This came as a terrible shock to my Pollyanna naiiveties at the time. I realized the version of Islam my parents had given to me wasn't widely accepted. Our faith always centered on pluralism, deep reverence for other monotheisms and an acknowledgement of our beliefs as Muslims to have been informed by the believers preceding Islam, as the Qur'an explicitly acknowledges.
On my 2001 return from Saudi Arabia, I began to record my experiences in a manuscript that would become my first book, In the Land of Invisible Women. Realizing I would be representing two versions of Islam- mine, and that espoused by Sunni Wahabi theocracy of Saudi Arabia -I needed to broaden my reading around key areas.
It was in my reading that I discovered the political ideology termed Islamism, and the many strains of contemporary radical Islam, both violent and non-violent. I learned unlike my own experience, many Muslims struggled with a pervasive sense of inferiority influencing all their beliefs, sense of justice and identities leading to deep and rather novel resentments. The fascist supremacy of Islamist ideologues was therefore a predictably appealing, if very frightening development, which, to my perspective was completely alien to the Islam I knew.
In the wake of 9-11, I saw Osama bin Laden feted as a hero in Pakistan. On one 2008 trip I recall a Pakistani driver in Karachi explaining to me why, years after 9-11, Pakistani families still named their newborns Osama. He was still recognized by many as a 'defender' of Islam, a 'warrior-savior'.
Nothing could be more offensive to my beliefs as a Muslim or my principles as a human being. This was extraordinarily difficult to reconcile with the knowledge that Islam condemns murder, and particularly the execution of non-combatant civilians in any setting. In my mind Bin Laden and his sympathizers had renounced Islam by their acts and represented nothing more than violent terrorists.
Over time the Islamist voice has become increasingly prominent, both in the West and the East: whether advancing the intrusion of ritual symbolism of Islam into the public space - for instance the battle for the niqab in the public arena in France, the demands for the veil to be permitted in FIFA soccer tournaments - or the most recent debacle involving the vilification of the NYPD for their counter terrorism efforts drawing false accusations of Muslim profiling.
Banning Lady Gaga from performing in Indonesia, or violent protests against Muslim writer Irshad Manji, the examples of Islamist actions are countless. Pakistan, the country of my parental heritage, is especially disturbing because Islamists are in full control of the constitution, judiciary and public discourse, resulting in some of the worst abuses against minorities anywhere in the world.
Throughout the world, the Islamists' goal is one and the same: to stoke the fires of unwitting Muslims into believing in their own manufactured sense of victimhood as a means to exploit both the uninformed Muslim and, often times, the liberal democracies where we make our homes.
Claiming persecution, discrimination, profiling or victimization liberal democracies are pressured in relinquishing not only their own sense of identity but also significant concessions in a shared public space which truly belongs to everyone, irrespective of faith and not merely the 'victimized Islamist Muslim'. It is this last fallacy, of collective victimhood, that most fuels my drive to expose Islamism for what it is - a weak yet vicious imposter for a great religion, an imposter which seeks to exploit and devour both Muslims and non Muslims it its pursuit for power and dominance.
In this country Islamist organizations seek to drown out the complex, heterogeneous and multifaceted community of Muslims in America. Their goal is to promote a unified sense of disadvantage and debasement of Muslim Americans. In fact, demographic data point in exactly the opposite direction- Muslims in America are more rapidly economically mobile than anywhere else in the world making it very hard to equate this reality with a fantasy of a disadvantaged marginalized American minority. They struggle to claim the right to represent all Muslims and become the owners of the Muslim American narrative but anti Islamist Muslims like me are here to challenge and ultimately overturn their audacity.
This very belief lead to my defense of the NYPD, a defense rooted in Islamic principles which demand every Muslim meet his duty to his society, its protection, cohesion and enhancement. I wrote about this in the Wall Street Journal at some length. Unfairly vilifying the NYPD in the way the AP reports have accomplished -published without balanced context or true expert analysis - has been enormously destructive to post 9-11 New York.
In my practice as a physician I am honored to attend to a great many law enforcement officials, whether the NYPD policeman on patrol, commanders operating counter terrorism task forces, federal bureau officials, or many other experts. Understanding their work and the toll it takes on them makes clear to me the enormous sacrifice these Americans (many of whom are also Muslim) and their families make to safeguard us at times of crisis and in between. We cannot tear these institutions (which the public likes to forget are made of individuals) in this fashion. That is the height of ingratitude and ignorance.
As a Muslim it is very simple to argue theologically against the Islamists. Islam is nothing if not justice. Any injustice committed or pursued in the name of Islam is anathema to the believing Muslim and counter to the ideal which is Islam. Muslims must remember their duty not only to themselves or their Maker but also to their society wherever they find themselves.
There is no place for Muslim claims of supremacy. The Prophet Mohammed (SAW) himself admonished his followers not to make claims of supremacy over Moses, or indeed any other messenger of God. The Qur'an repeatedly reminds the Muslim that 'to each is sent a Law and a Way' and to each they must 'judge themselves by their Law and their Way'. Islamist Muslims overlook this.
Our role as believers is to cooperate and collaborate and enhance the world, not to oppress, discriminate, exclude or persecute others. Major Muslim democracies around the world, foremost Pakistan and Indonesia have departed from these foundational principles and in doing so have renounced their rights to call themselves Islamic.
They are operating as Islamist Supremacists who legally persecute Muslim and non-Muslim minorities to extinction through execution and do so with impunity. Worse they seek to propagate extraordinarily vicious blasphemy laws into the wider field of international law through the Organization of the Islamic Conference seeking to confine and then suffocate free speech- which, along with free press is the bulwark of any vibrant democracy.
These are not the ways of Muslims. These are the ways of fascists. Fortunately organizations like The Lawfare Project provide anti-Islamist Muslims like me a platform from which to challenge these abuses and misuses of international law and a critically intelligent means to understand the impact of Islamist Lawfare.
In my position of privilege and opportunity, if I do not oppose this, I am failing in my duty to American society and in failing American society, I fail as a Muslim. I am reminded of a saying attributed by the Prophet Mohammed by one of his companions recounting it to an early believer:
"Whoever sees a wrong and is able to put it right with his hand, let him do so; if he can't, then with his tongue, if he cant, then with his heart. That is the bare minimum of faith".
This, having both hand, tongue, and heart, I am committed to I live by.
Much of this article was recently published following my interview with National Security Analyst Ryan Mauro, Fellow at The Clarion Fund, concerning my motives to confront contemporary radical Islamism. You can read our animated dialogue here. My thanks to Ryan Mauro and all his colleagues at Clarion Fund's Flagship Educational Website http://www.radicalislam.org/ which has been exploring anti-Islamist Muslims and their growing voice. I am grateful for their efforts and the opportunity they provide me.
]]>America's Not So Elite Sleeplesstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8469552011-05-20T13:51:10-04:002011-07-20T05:12:01-04:00Qanta Ahmed, MDhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/qanta-ahmed/ Wall Street Journal's recent article on 'The Sleepless Elite' reminds us a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. "Sleep may be a waste of time," quips the lede. Sadly, the article conveys little more than a myopic message woefully removed from our highly sleep-disordered American reality.
Americans and our American lifestyles are at conflict with healthy sleep. We term this culture Sleep Machismo -- our puritanical culture celebrates surviving on the least sleep, sneers at those who appear to need more and sacrifices sleep -- a fundamental biological need -- in favor of all other activity.
For Americans, sleep is treated as an expendable luxury instead of the vital function required for longevity, health and wellness that science confirms it to be. Without informed sleep specialists directing the unfolding American conversation on sleep, Americans are left to pick their own way beyond the newest and most treacherous frontier in the War on American Sleep: an uninformed media.
Delivering sleep research amputated from reasoned context and legitimized by media leaves Americans less informed than if they hadn't read anything at all. Devoid of accurate and mature perspective, trivia often masquerades as newsworthy reporting, while major concerns pertaining to sleep go overlooked.
The research discussed in this article is firmly in its infancy -- years away, if ever, from guiding clinical practice and human behavior. Today, I believe this so-called "news" is nothing more than health trivia, perhaps appropriate for Jeopardy but little else. As this research continues, we may well find that the "The Sleepless Elite" suffer from more chronic disease and have shorter lifespans and higher risk for sudden death than do the common sleep-requiring folk. But we won't know for a long time to come.
Today, more than 100 million of us are sleep disordered and, at the very least, 45 million or so are chronically sleep deprived. For a third of Americans, sleep is far from a waste of time; instead, for some, it's the best use of their time. The destructive American anthem of "sleep less, do more" is a familiar one. Even a sleep researcher was recently quoted as saying "Everyone can use more waking hours, even if you just watch movies."
Not so. Most of us need more sleeping hours. Ironically, watching movies is singularly destructive to a good night's sleep. Late night light-emitting screen time, whether television movies or streaming video, is a major contributor to social jetlag -- literally resetting our internal sleep clocks backwards, making us fall asleep ever later and adding to our mounting sleep debt.
And sleep debt costs.
Last month alone we have seen a New York City tour bus operator crash at 5:35 am on March 12, killing 14 passengers after several episodes of lane-drifting known to be a harbinger of sleep-related collisions. Less than two weeks later in D.C., two airliners landed at Reagan National without control tower clearance because the air traffic supervisor was asleep. We are now enthralled by a national spectacle as the FAA reveals its struggles with managing shift workers who are buckling under sleep pressure. Instead of recognizing that there is a biological drive to sleepiness, sleep deprived, shift work disordered air traffic controllers are labeled as 'unprofessional.'
The media commentary around this event has been extraordinarily uninformed, with night after night of network coverage repeatedly missing the mark: shift work causes sleep disorders which place our shift workers, their important work and their fellow citizens at risk.
We are far from a nation in search of the mysteries of a Sleepless Elite. Instead, we are a nation blundering around barely awake at precisely those times when we should be soundly, and safely, asleep. Just when America is mired in an obesity pandemic, some of which is tied to undiagnosed sleep disorders, long work hours and overeating driven by severe chronic partial sleep deprivation, such commentary without context is particularly damaging.
These and similar news stories reveal the profound lack of depth, insight and positioning of meaningful information to an exhausted public desperately indeed of good information about sleep. This gaping deficit, papered over by ill-informed journalists and well-meaning but media-naïve specialists conspire to form a miasma of medical media misinformation which facilitates, rather than dispels confusion. Such medical misinformation is
'nothing short of a public health felony'
in the words of Dr. Jim Metropoulos, an Internist and acknowledged messaging expert from the global healthcare communications arena. Dr. Metropoulos explains further...
"I understand the unrelenting need the 24/7/365 media world has for more and more content. In the pursuit of a never ending supply of material to pipe through their mobile, desktop, tabletop and tablet outlets the media grabs onto trivia and repackages it as news and information -- over and over again -- print to video to audio to print. On and on it goes, and, with each iteration, the material is further removed from meaningful context and the experts that could ensure accuracy. The result is a less informed public, in this case, hoping to find the secret password for membership into the "sleepless elite club."
There are many frontiers in the War on American Sleep: shift work, our flailing economy, our highly digitalized and over-stimulated environment, our multiple and competing roles, our intensely oral culture which promotes over-eating, substance use and over-reliance on pharmacological fixes. The media, unfortunately, is just the latest in a series of obstacles to achieving meaningful balanced and sensible information. Specialists and our patients must partner together to overcome this barrier too.
Fortunately, the war against Sleep Machismo starts not on Wall Street, but on Main Street. Americans are great at making their demands known and good sleep information will follow public calls for more critical, meaningful reporting.
]]>Egypt, 'Ummah Duniyah', Roars: Hear Me Muslim Arabs, We Are All Qahirene!tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8167062011-02-01T10:01:47-05:002011-05-25T18:30:24-04:00Qanta Ahmed, MDhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/qanta-ahmed/Ummah Duniyah -- Mother of the World -- a testament to Egypt's extraordinarily rich and ancient history. Zachariah's gallant chivalry and quiet reticence and his articulate, softly enunciated Arabic were an oasis from the harsh realities of a single British woman in late nineties Riyadh.
In many ways, Zachariah's humble grace and kindness captured the famed gentility of Egypt's working classes, a softness which often irks Egypt's contemptuous Arab neighbors. Today the neighbors have forgotten their contempt, and supplanted by awe, they watch tumultuous scenes unfold in Cairo, quivering in their foolish Dior and Dunhill.
The Qahirene (as Cairo dwellers are known in Arabic) and their fellow citizens have ensnared the world's attention. Protesters bubble with superheated frustration threatening to sputter over the crucible's edge and spark unrest throughout the Arab Muslim world. The scenes so enthralling us are an autocrats' worst nightmare manifest. See them scurry to seek consolation with the surprisingly feckless Western diplomats abruptly surprised. No war games prepared them for the arrival of this untamed monster. The powder keg of public outrage is finally lit, and, sweeping across a long suffering, disabused Muslim Arab world, hundreds of millions of Muslims are completely captivated by images from a quarter of their fellow Arab humanity.
Egyptian protesters and commentators alike underline this is not a Muslim revolt, this is an Egyptian revolt -- pleasant semantics which will bear little relevance short months from now. The colossal Muslim majority of Egypt's population ensures that the actions of Egyptians will reverberate through the rest of the wider Muslim world in unimaginable impact.
The climate inside Egypt is volatile. Vandalism, lawlessness and looting have already begun, community vigilantes and a military, as yet loyal to the proletariat, struggling to maintain a cagey security. The great Egyptian Museum of Cairo has already been raided, resulting in the decapitation of two ancient mummies, symbolic as Egypt disarticulates Mubarak from his Promethean grip on power. Decapitating dictators from power has profound, game-changing outcomes. Like all executions, bloodbaths, literal and figurative, will surely follow.
Mubarak's power has been bolstered by American support desperate for allies in a precarious region. Mubarak has exploited these needs leveraging his priceless capital of peace with Israel -- the legacy of far greater men than he. Egypt's cooperation with Israel on the Rafa border, containment of armaments entering Gaza, and more recently collaboration with the US on the war on terror have been richly rewarded by a West with no alternatives.
Unfortunately these crucial gains (which have kept us at the brink of a fractious and occasionally fragmented peace since Sadat and Begin) have come at exorbitantly high sacrificial prices at the altar of democratization. Yet, to be balanced, we cannot fairly single out the once ruthless and now abruptly hapless Mubarak. His themes of absolute power and personal wealth extracted at the expense of his disempowered populace is a sadly thematic one when considering the truly Pharaohnic leaders of the Arab Muslim world. This is a region where leaders are defined by their obsessional pursuit of despotic power born of an extraordinary sense of entitlement to uncontested, permanent power. It is this edifice, much more than mere Mubarak's, that Egypt now crumbles. Tunisia's Mohsen Bouterfif was the fuse, Egypt is the tinderbox, the Arab Muslim world bone-dry stacks of dynamite. We all wait to see if it detonates.
What transpires in Egypt could translate in other populations of disenfranchised, unemployed and desolate, enraged Muslims elsewhere. Meanwhile, the other 800lb gorilla in the room, upon which so many American interests focus, the Saudis, seek empty assurances. Rousing himself from a Moroccan recovery, the aging Monarch reassures Mubarak, a badly bleeding Cesar. Saudi elite publicly assure themselves of their immunity from such grotesque and unsavory anarchy sheltered, 'Alhumdullilah', by the relief that they do not have to trouble themselves with needling irritations like faux-democracy. Privately, they anxiously hope they may continue to rely on the eternal complacency of their well-fed, lethargic and heavily subsidized citizens rendered stuporous on the petroleum vapors emanating from the proximity (to but not possession of) obscene wealth.
But the arrival of democracy can be dangerous when violently birthed into a vacuum. Such 'Just-add-Al-Jazeera' democracies can empower vengeful minorities exactly like the Muslim Brotherhood. Instant democracy contains dangers for both Egyptians and citizens of established democracies such as ours here in the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel all of whom nervously, impotently survey the scene. Each of us has an enormous amount to lose if populist, powerful and highly mechanized machinery of the Muslim Brotherhood rides the crest of this unexpected tide.
Elegant appeals for restraint from demonizing the Muslim Brotherhood have already started appearing in the mainstream US press, laying the ground for its palatable rebranding. Gently ushered in within the frightening guise of politically correct and appetizing pluralism -- 'we can coexist with secularity' fundamentalist Islam espoused by the Muslim Brotherhood is already welcomed as if it is 'the choice of the people'. Articulate, erudite Egyptians in well cut suits assure us that Islamist democracy, or fundamentalist Islam could not happen in their country, but hey, that's what we thought at the birth of Jinnah's Pakistan and look where that got us: the thoroughly constitutional Blasphemy Laws, among other rare delicacies.
The Muslim Brotherhood's infrastructure, their broad appeal to Muslim masses (masses which remain doubly illiterate in both letter and liturgy) their borrowed legitimacy derived of an artificial Islam disguising the wolf of extremism in lamb's clothing, all combine to ensure they are poised to secure a significantly larger and highly legitimized platform for installing authoritarian fundamentalism through a truly neonatal democracy. The Egyptian revolts are an Islamist movement's a la carte dream come true.
Well spoken academics garnering vapid undiscriminating airtime assure us that the Muslim Brotherhood has been unfairly demonized in an exaggerated fashion as an intimidating alternative once serving Mubarak's dominance. Friends, these are hollow assurances. Ask the truly informed, the deeply knowledgeable and the sincere investigators, men and women whose views are too frightening for a sedated American public more at home with reality TV than real news. While the Muslim Brotherhood may not be poised to lead Egyptian immediately in post Mubarak Egypt, the vacuum left in the wake of a thirty-year dictatorship will usher in their entry into legitimate circles of real power in the most critical region on the planet.
So who are the Muslim Brotherhood? How big are they? Where are they located? The Muslim Brotherhood has become a dominant Islamist influence across the Sunni world. They are coming to a friendly neighborhood near you, closer to home than you may realize. Here in the United States, their public relations organizations have surreptitiously become part of the establishment of American Islam's mouthpieces. Organs like the Islamic Society of North America , Council of American Islamic Relations, the Muslim Students Associations and others now speak for all Muslim Americans, whether we like it or not, whether we want it or not. They claim to speak for all American Muslims capitalizing on the fact that we are a fairly dispersed, politically naive, hardworking, minority Diaspora far too busy contributing to American society to pay attention to the development of self-appointed mouthpieces rising like Sleeping Beauty's forest around us. Theirs have been the loudest voices in the Ground Zero Islamic Center debate, pushing for entitlements and polarizing society and more recently the histrionic outcries denouncing the proposed hearings on Radical Islam in America, hearings to propose precisely what they and others seek to conceal.
Make no mistake, the Muslim Brotherhood is a menacingly ambitious group which seeks staggering influence in international and domestic politics and has an unshakable value of installing an ultraorthodox Sharia through the bedrock of constitutions and democracy in a way that will favor repression, social control, and seek to expunge pluralism and secularity. Any educated pluralistic Muslim recognizes that secular democracy in fact encompasses all the Islamic ideals rendering even a thoughtful nuanced rendition of Sharia (yes there is more than one brand of Sharia) largely redundant in democracies such as America and Britain's.
Relevant to us now is to remember the Muslim Brotherhood's beginnings (and most tenacious roots) are in fact Egyptian, where they have long been a significant source of support to a neglected populace. Founded in 1928 by an Egyptian schoolteacher, Hasan Banaa, the Muslim Brotherhood began working through charity and education. Like any self-respecting movement, they began as a grassroots, community-based organization. They cleverly focused on mosques, neighborhoods and local support groups. Somehow, this ground-up approach confers a deceptive legitimacy and altruism to a profoundly narcissistic organization bent on exploiting precisely the most vulnerable in society for their grander schemes.
Steadily, their influence increased, until now they have representation in many Sunni Islamist governments and chapters in over 70 countries. In the United States, they function covertly as components to community advocacy groups who are inexplicably empowered by a naïve, or perhaps deliberately wily, US administration fulfilling short sighted politically correct goals while persistently failing to see the risks presented by engaging with such organizations at the exclusion of the influences of smaller and far more moderate groups. Further, with over 30 chapters in the United States the groups themselves are impossible to ignore, carrying with them a fairly vocal constituency. Their sheer size and organization effectively suffocate competing voices struggling to make alternate, pluralistic and secular Muslim American viewpoints known.
Mubarak's downfall leaves little to expand into this sudden, once virtual and now potential space. The expanding cavity of chaos will literally implode, carrying forth the accelerated arrival of an intensely invigorated resurgent Islamist leadership of Egypt which will gain popular support, whether the Egyptians like it or not. Fear not, my view is not contrarian, merely realistically pessimistic. The Muslim Brotherhood needn't be a proportional majority. We need only look to Lebanon to see what an armed and conniving minority party in the form of Hezbollah can do to wrestle a weak state into submission, like a Trojan horse, from within. Admittedly, majority representation would be nice from the Muslim Brotherhood's view, but ready havoc can be effectively wreaked with mere critical minority representation parasitically embedded in the apparatus of a fragile, still cartilaginous democracy.
The years of peaceful Egyptian relations with Israel, the keystone to a functioning Middle East and the gateway to wider stability are possibly at an abrupt end. A new era is arriving. Israel must now worry about a Southern front once more. Egyptian cooperation with the US on the War on Terror and their tacit collaboration in 'containing' the Palestinian problem are all on the table now.
Tonight, I watch superheated protesters -- hijabed Egyptian women -- with excellent English, express their venomous contempt for Mubarak. Repeatedly, woman after woman fails to identify Mubarak's craven deficits in the areas of civic progress. Instead, the passionate protesters repeatedly cite his unwavering alliance with Israel and the US. The capacity for introspection in this exhausted populace, like the rest of the jaded Arab Muslim world, is non existent. Frightened, like a babe who hears his own inaugural, brutal bawl, Arab Muslims articulate the first sonnets of an incandescent, broiling rage, both marveling and terrified at the discovery of their own global voice.
Whatever the new leadership of Egypt, we can be sure the coalition government, and ultimately the new majority government, will be in an astonishingly powerful position to exercise regional leverage, while both the Arab Gulf States and the United States feverishly appease the nascent government with billion dollar carrots and flatfooted diplomacy. Anything to buy cooperation -- Egypt is just too crucial a pawn in the regional and (ultimately) world order. Unfortunately, fundamentalist groups have a spectacularly well-developed apparatus decades old in maturity to capitalize on such leverage. They are deeply rooted in community. They are heavily veiled in a manufactured man-made Islam. They are most of all fluently versed in the mesmerizing dialects of violent preemptive jihad, Islamist nihilism and rabid antisemitism. All told, this is a monster which is poised, primed and prepared to unleash its full influence.
Arab nations throughout the region are rightly on tenterhooks, popping their Valiums washed down with imported Jack Daniels as they compulsively channel surf between Al Jazeera, Al Arabiyah, LBC and others. Will we be next? they ask themselves, swiveling their jeweled worry beads. Only time will tell. Yet of one thing can we can all be certain: as Ummah Duniyah roars, something in the bosom of every Arab Muslim finally stirs.
We can all agree: the giant sleeps no more.
]]>A Muslim's Duty to Society: The Time to Step Up is Nowtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8061372011-01-18T11:46:14-05:002011-05-25T18:25:24-04:00Qanta Ahmed, MDhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/qanta-ahmed/The Wall Street Journal. My thanks to the editors at WSJ. You can read the full op-ed here and an extract is published below, with the Journal's permission.
Muslims have a commandment to fulfill duties to the societies in which they make their home. Counter-terrorism and Homeland Security experts, take note of the Islamic scriptures supporting this to help augment your efforts to collaborate with the Muslim Community towards safeguarding us all. Many Muslims themselves are unaware of this responsibility, and so, therefore are the communities within which they live. Without question, a Muslim better educated about Islam is de facto a better American. Part of that education is understanding our obligations to America.
Meanwhile, I am stunned by the level of vitriol in the comments generated on the article in the Wall Street Journal's OpEd forum, but perhaps I have been spoiled by the camaraderie of the Huffington Post readership. I leave you to draw your own comparisons and share your own observations on the Representative's controversial, yet I believe, very brave decision.
While Rep. King has a reputation for adopting polarizing positions--particularly when it comes to immigration--his hearings deserve serious consideration. "There has to be an honest discussion of the role of the Muslim community--what they are doing, what they're not doing," he explained to the New York Observer in a Nov. 30 article. "I talk to law enforcement people across the country; they will tell me. . . . They don't feel any sense of cooperation."
These concerns are reasonable ones. Histrionic objections to them only deter Muslims from fulfilling a fundamental Islamic obligation: Meeting our duty to the society in which we live.
]]>Of Madness and Muslim Martyrdom: The Ideal Age of Indoctrinationtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8032552011-01-03T11:30:04-05:002011-05-25T18:20:30-04:00Qanta Ahmed, MDhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/qanta-ahmed/New Year's Day, New York -- This week's news reports out of Egypt of a suicide bombing targeting Alexandria's Coptic Christians in a New Years Eve mass are a sobering start to the New Year. At the present time seventeen are reported to have been killed and many more injured. The prevalence of suicide martyrdom operations has now become so commonplace that as a viewership we are badly inured to them. Its worth remembering that the ideology supporting these fanatical attacks may begin long before the bomber reaches adulthood.
Last spring I received a letter from a Saudi father in Jeddah. His twelve-year old daughter had returned home from school that day, casually mentioning that her Saudi teacher had endorsed suicide attacks as permissible in Islam. The matter had been discussed in the context of Palestine. He writes:
"... my daughter was confused another topic which totally contradicts what I say to her on how its nice to have friends from all over the world regardless of their religion or ethnicity. Her teacher, originally from Palestine, was talking to her class on how becoming martyrs on the road to freeing Palestine from infidels is the highest and most noble thing -Islamism is spoon fed to our kids. I used to think to be a good parent all one had to do was ensure one's child gets a good education. Now I realize to be a good parent these days I have to protect my child from education!"
He added a link to a video, which had been circulating at the time. It was a highly produced, glossy arrangement featuring a handsome Arab male lead and a young singing companion. The melody was very catchy, and bore repeated viewing very well. The child's angelic voice was sweet and pure, an excellent contrast to the Arab male's heartening and sexy baritone. Dressed head to foot in black, with a dash of designer stubble, he was a no less than a Lebanese Ricky Martin.
I followed the song in translation. The verses were about dying for Palestine, wanting to become bride to the beloved Palestinian soil and looking forward to martyrdom. The pretty five-year-old child was enunciating every word perfectly, in a highly produced, moving hymn to martyrdom.
I sent the link on to a former colleague of mine from Riyadh, now a stay at home mom in Jeddah. Watching the video she realized this was the tune her five-year-old had been singing for weeks. She wrote to me at once to tell me why she recognized the song that her child had been singing.
'She most probably heard it in school. I did nothing. You must realize Qanta that with 5yr old kids that is the best policy because they forget so easily (she has actually forgotten it as I write to you because this was a few months ago) and they cannot understand this anyway. Palestinian kids live this and it is a reality for them. And yet I don't believe as you do that television programs can actually brain wash children unless the parents allow that to happen. I believe that parents are the ones that shape the beliefs of children at this age unless they forgo that responsibility'.
I asked the mother, how her daughter could have seen the video.
'I never said she saw the video. She must have heard the song from one of the other kids at school because at the time when I asked her what she was singing (because it was all warbled) she couldn't elaborate. They do watch some things at school but related to the educational material that is being discussed or cartoons if they stay beyond hours which fortunately my kids don't'.
I asked how she handled this as a mom.
"We didn't do anything Qanta. She is five years old. Children have very short memories at that age. She has probably forgotten...."
Developmental psychologists know that children do not forget. In fact, there may be no other more critical time (when children are forming tenacious attachment to imaginary figures, including God and God-like figures) than the tender ages of five and seven.
Political powers espousing radical contemporary Islam which foster martyrdom as a form of preemptive asymmetric warfare aim to influence children at exactly these ages. The broadcasts of Palestinian's authorities on Hamas TV are an extraordinarily prescient example viewed from an developmental psychological attachment-maturation perspective.
Hamas TV's Sesame Street-like broadcasts have become widespread, hosted by children of similar age broadcast to their peers advocating martyrdom to their child viewership. The shows have an enormous popular appeal and are widely accessible, adding materially to the belief that there is more value in uniting with the non-corporeal entity of God than seeking attachment to any other entity, and that willful death can be the only consummation of such attachment.
As is often said of the media, Hamas TV is not only the OTHER parent, in Gaza it is the ONLY parent. Data gathered by Palestinian Media Watch reveals Hamas TV broadcasts children's programming which routinely dehumanizes Jews ( and by extension Palestinians), murdering Jews and eating them, albeit in puppet form. Organizations like Children's Rights Institute are among the first to articulate the exposure of children to such ideology as a form of child abuse. These images and actions are likely therefore to be incorporated into very real and lasting constructs for the preschool Palestinian watching them, effectively enshrining dehumanization at the earliest stages of development. Repetition of content has the effect of both maintaining attention and sustaining retention over prolonged periods of time.
As helpless onlookers, we soothe ourselves by suggesting the martyr bomber is psychiatrically ill, unstable, acting from a position of psychotic break or merely 'brainwashed'. We soothe ourselves without support for this in scientific data, yet we cling to this belief simply because it makes us feel sane, stable, psychologically well and, in contrast, human. Distancing ourselves from the perpetrators enables us to remain safely apart and firmly unshaken in our elite isolations while they are portrayed as increasingly inhuman.
When we think of martyr-suicides within a framework of 'suicide is sick' we avoid the more chilling construct of 'suicide is wrong but rational". By assigning a sick role to the concept of suicide we are spared considerations of its morality and accompanying dilemmas. When suicide is seen as sick it is spared a moral judgment -- instead it is seen as essentially amoral. The act is condemned but the perpetrator is not judged, because he or she was 'sick'. Suicide bombing becomes amoral, rather than immoral.
The event -- which results in the death of so many -- is in fact one of many calculated, considered and measured choices. This is evident in the bomber's preparation before departure for voluntary missions, paying unsettled debts, being unusually tender to family members, preparing a final video-taped exhortation ( which acts as a social contract), donning the clothing, mounting the transportation (which often costs more than the materials which will shortly detonate) and finally choosing the agreed target, evading capture and detonating the explosive. This is a series of calm, considered and fully premeditated, rational acts. Suicide bombing by default is elective, not compelled -- elective acts to choose one's own death amidst those of so many others. Suicide bombing therefore is fundamentally immoral against the actions acceptable to wide swathes of humanity, irrespective of faith compass.
The recipients of the attacks -- New Yorkers, Londoners, citizens of New Delhi or Bali, Israelis, Iraqis and American forces in Iraq and most recently and ferociously of all -- Pakistanis -- see the suicide bombing as morally reprehensible, repugnant and fundamentally immoral in a way that overshadows any other immoral event. However from the vantage of societies from which suicide bombers emanate: Palestine, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Lebanon (ironically often the very same places targeted for attack) the suicide bombers are seen simultaneously as morally exemplary by segments of society. Such exemplars are they, that they are canonized immediately after death, their funerals become processions, their names bestowed on streets, schools, and computer labs, football teams and entire communities are effectively institutionalized memorials to terror. Such subliminal and overt veneration builds an environment where the moral foundations of a community firmly rest on the decapitated shoulders of martyr-murderers.
While the martyr may have fervent supporters who vigorously sustain these acts, many in the audience attempt to sidestep engagement or comment, forming the silent, reluctant majority. Willing spectators, nonetheless, they seek to remain uninvolved, disengaged, and neutral. This is precisely the group most sought after by the martyrdom operatives because this majority remains available to mobilization. Potentially, their masses can be motivated to fall behind the cause and generate perpetuating vitalizing momentum. The silent majority, therefore, are the most critical component of the societal audience, an audience which today comprises of hundreds of millions if not more.
Conversion is in fact the ultimate goal of the martyr. He seeks to generate greater and greater subscribers to his politico-religious viewpoint through his highly televised, promotional death. When narratives fail to evoke sufficient pathos, or when audiences are saturated and inured to violence and mayhem, such aims fail, and do so categorically.
Explicit accounts, videotapes, cassettes, internet uploaded movie files all seek to ignite the collective guilt and repentance for being less worthy, less pure, less valiant than the martyr. Repeated recitation, canonization, rote ritualization, all are deployed to sear the martyrdom act into societal memory for maximal impact and manipulation. Modern day Islamist terrorists know this and apply it with an almost unparalleled mastery. They add scripture to support their evil rationale. The most often quoted verse from the Quran has become the foundational mantra for modern day contemporary Islamist terrorism.
'And do not think those who have been killed in the way of Allah as dead; they are rather living with their Lord, well provided for. Rejoicing in what their Lord has given them of His bounty, and they rejoice for those who stayed behind and did not join them, knowing that they have nothing to fear and they shall not grieve'. Quran 3:169-70
This verse is perhaps the most direct proof that martyrs are separated from other Muslims, though martyrdom is hardly a central tenet of belief. Instead this verse is to comfort those bereaved during legitimate just warfare deemed (in the words of the Prophet (SAW) 'the lesser Jihad'.
The jihadist literature has taken this verse and distorted its intent to the extreme degree, justifying preemptive acts of terror in the interests of political and ideological gain as a means of inferring martyrdom status on those who perpetrate terror through premeditated suicide attacks.
Ayatollah Khomeini changed modern Muslim attitudes to Islamic martyrdom by focusing on the epicenter of Shi'ism, the martyrdom of Al-Husain. Al Husain was portrayed by Khomeini was a willing martyr rather than a tragic figure doomed to die. In this revision of the ancient martryology, Khomeini catalyzed the evolution of quietist Shi'ism into radicalized, proactive advocates of political martyrdom. Khomeini articulated this equal-opportunity martyrdom crisply.
" the action of seeking out martyrdom is among the highest forms of martyrdom and sacrifice in the path of religion........there is no difference between male and female ( in this) "
Other leading Shiite clerics augmented this new, aggressive view:
'What does a martyr do? His function is not confined to resisting the enemy and in the process either giving him a blow or receiving a blow from him. Had that been the case, we could say that when his blood is shed it has been a waste. But at no time is a martyr's blood wasted. It does not flow on the ground. Every drop of it is turned into hundreds of thousands of drops, nay into tons of blood and is transfused into the body of his society... Martyrdom means transfusion of blood into a particular human society, especially a society suffering from anemia, so to speak, of true faith. It is the martyr who infuses such fresh blood into the veins of such a society '.
The color red signifying blood is a central theme. In Gaza, and other disputed territories, sites of suicide attacks are ritually refreshed with lamb's blood to keep this association acute, and vivid, days after the remains have been cleared. Modern poets do that too, revealing the extent to which beliefs about the values of martyrdom have become internalized, globalized and accepted even at the echelons of power is captured in a poem written by the late Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the UK ( 2002) Ghazi- Al- Qusaybi.
'For the Martyrs (Li'l-shuhada')'
God bears witness that you are martyrs; the prophets and friends (of God) bear witness.
You have died so as to glorify the word of my Lord, in the dwellings glorified by the Night Journey (of the Prophet Mohammed).
Have you committed suicide?? (No) we are the ones who have committed suicide in life, but our dead are alive.
O people, we have died, so prepare to listen how they eulogize us.
We were impotent until even impotence complained of us, we wept until weeping had scorn for us.
We prostrated until prostration was disgusted by us, we hoped until hope asked for assistance.
We licked the shoe of (Israeli Prime Minister) Sharon until the shoe cried: Watch out, you are tearing me!
We repaired to the illegitimate rulers of the White House whose heart is filled with darkness.
O people we have died but dust is ashamed to cover us
Tell Ayyat (Al Akhras): O bride of the highest heavens. (We) ransom all beauty for your pupils.
When champions are castrated, the choice (ones) of my people.
Beauty confronts the criminal, she kisses death and laughs in proclamation- when leaders flee from death.
Paradise opens its gates and is cheerful. Fatima the splendorous (daughter of Mohammed) meets you!
Tell those who have embellished those fatwas against suicide attacks): Grant a delay. Many fatwas have heaven in an uproar.
When jihad calls, the learned man is silent, the reed (pen), books and the jurisprudents.
When jihad calls, there is no asking for fatwas: the day of jihad is (a day of) blood
Ambassador Qusaybi further underlines the emasculation of collective manhood by singling out a female martyr in the figure of Ayyat Al Akhras who in her final exoneration videotaped before her suicide attack asked " Where are the Arab Leaders?" and "I am going to fight instead of the sleeping Arab armies who are watching Palestinian girls fighting alone,".
Reviewing the literature over past months around these areas has been deeply unsatisfying, posing more questions than revealing answers. In the process, I have discovered myself firmly on an insurmountable boundary as defined by modern Muslim martyrdom: on the side of the denouncers. This in itself is a source of deep personal discomfort since it separates me from much of the most vociferous kinship of the modern global Ummah endorsing unconditional support of the Palestinian Cause, overlooking the moral dilemmas this poses for a believing Muslim.
Separation of Muslim from Muslim within Islam is a highly charged, lonely, and negatively regarded position for a Muslim to take, but some of us must choose this place of exile if we are to go on being believing Muslims. And so, if exile is my only salvation, I must choose it.
This article first appeared in Dutch National Trouw on December 11th 2010, edited by Ms. Andrea Bosman, translated by Ms.Sarah Lawson. The article is an extract from my Templeton-Cambridge thesis submitted for the 2010 Templeton-Cambridge Fellowship in Journalism, Science and Religion.]]>Manufactured Muslim Identities: From Nablus to Newham, Emblems of Islamist Sympathizerstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.7988122010-12-20T13:33:43-05:002011-05-25T18:20:30-04:00Qanta Ahmed, MDhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/qanta-ahmed/
X-rays show a ferocious pneumonia. I go in search of family, expecting to see other Arabs. Instead, I encounter four robust Pakistani women. Pockmarked acne and gap-toothed smiles unite them as family. As a Muslim of British-Pakistani heritage and a physician, I am amazed at the extent of his racial transition. He has fooled me entirely.
Many British Muslims, like my patient, fervently erase their ethnicity with ritualistic religiosity, deliberately choosing distinction from that of their parents'. They do so in a desperate search of politicized Muslim identity, with little understanding of either Islam, or politics.
Raised on a virtual Ummah made vivid through satellite TV and YouTube, these young Muslims seek to relate to a Palestinian neighbor they will never know, in preference to the Londoner next door. In a digital mirror, they identify with pixilated distortions symbolizing a manufactured Muslim identity. Choosing Nablus over Newham, they dress in thobes, a keffiah thrown in for Gaza Strip panache. In austere, imagined Arab dress, they ride the District line, unaware how removed they are from their Hilfiger-and-Hi-top-wearing Saudi counterparts.
Increasingly, first and second generation British Muslims shun their ethnic heritage and cultural frameworks in favor of a perverse, exaggerated narcissistic compassion for worlds of which they can never be part. It is among such youth that martyrdom operations find Muslim sympathizers. The resurgent Arab dress code is integral to what psychologists describe as Terror Management Theory. Dr. Jose Liht at the University of Cambridge and his colleagues have studied Islamic extremism in Britain. Earlier this year he explained the theory to me, and its role in radicalization during my time in the Templeton-Cambridge Fellowship in Science and Journalism.
Foreknowledge of death is unique to humans and exists in parallel to a fundamental drive to survive. This tension forms a circular connection between meaningfulness and death. Crises (whether political, environmental, or other) heighten the desire to become part of a 'meaningful' universe; something bigger than self; something worth dying for. Failing to find meaning in day-to-day existence erodes psychological protections against the inevitability of death. An unavoidable awareness of a meaningless finality triggers desperate attempts to find meaning, often found only by participating in something of epic dimension. Vulnerable British Muslims retreat into chosen Islamist group identities with alternate worldviews. Theirs is a deadly roulette: trading individual identity in exchange for the group's. As the invisible Islamist croupier spins the wheel of deception faster and faster, self identity spins and spins. Soon the Muslim has lost all boundaries of self, arriving to a new, highly malleable manufactured one. He cannot remember whom he once was, having irretrievably left his 'self' somewhere behind on the roulette wheel. Becoming part of an extreme group assuages the individuals anxious search for meaning while demonizing the 'other' against which he seeks real or imagined refuge. A valuable new focus has been provided.
Muslims who are feeling increasingly disengaged from both surrounding British society and that of their parents' heritage are particularly vulnerable. Wearing 'Arab' clothing is externally emblematic of this dissolution. Quite simply, when ideology changes, people change their clothing. Accepting terrorist operations, including suicide martyrdom, may now take root, as the group identity builds on this fertile, distorted worldview.
Islam reviles suicide, designating the taking of life tantamount to the killing of all mankind. Yet many Muslims privately condone, or openly admire suicide martyrdom operations particularly when deployed as a weapon against Americans or Israelis. This is a direct function of disordered terror management psychology: the American, the Israeli, the Jew, the 'other' is now an amorphous, legitimate target for destruction.
As a Diaspora Muslim I must belong to the real societies around me, not virtual ones networked-in. My belonging is physical and psychological. Belonging is inclusive, not exclusive. I must belong, even if in doing so I am aligned with groups increasingly repugnant to the discourse of mainstream Muslims. I am aligned with Americans, Jews and Israelis, all targets of suicide operations, because I share their revulsion for suicide operations and the desecration of land and life. I share these values, as a human being, as a physician, as a Muslim.
Wherever I am, the fabric of society is more important than any fabric of my clothing. As Muslims, that can be our only authentic identity: one where we are human beings first, People of the Book second, this can be our only cloth.
This article was first published in The Guardian on December 11th 2010 in the Face to Faith section and can be found here. ]]>