Should Women Wear Bras? (The Search for Progressive Islam in America)

By Ahmed Nassef

Everybody loves progressive Muslims these days. (The INS does too, but they love them better in jail. Call it "tough love.").

Heck, even Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense and one of the architects of President Bush's impending war on Iraq, is a big proponent: before bedtime, he is curling up these days with a copy of Taking Back Islam.

Reading the book has encouraged him, he told the Washington Post recently: "We need an Islamic reformation, and I think there is real hope for one."

The 19th century had Jamal Al-Din Al-Afghani and Muhammad Abduh.

The 20th century gave us Muhammad Iqbal.

Now, we have Paul Wolfowitz calling for the reopening of the gates of ijtihad (original thinking on legal matters).

With friends like him, well you know how the rest goes.

But of course the kind of "moderate" and "progressive" Islam that Wolfowitz wants is the kind that accepts US hegemony over the world, that thinks it's peachy to relegate Palestinians to bantustans, and that believes Donald Rumsfeld is the long lost mahdi, ready to liberate and "democratize" Iraq.

All of which begs the question: how can a genuine, indigenous progressive movement develop in the United States among the estimated six million or so Muslims here?

Unquestionably, "progressive" or "moderate" are loaded terms. The members of the Wahhabi Council for Scientific Research and Legal Opinions, the supreme religious body in Saudi Arabia, for example, describe themselves as moderate and mainstream as they rule that women over 40 are prohibited from wearing bras.

In the US, some Muslim American leaders will proclaim their love for participation and "shura" while presiding over undemocratic, exclusive personality cults.

So for the record, let me be clear: sexist, racist, bigoted, authoritarian, and exclusionary practice is NOT how I define progressive. This is not a matter of three out of five isn't bad.

Most authoritarian religious groupings, no matter their theological or juridical leanings, prefer an exclusive interpretation of the Truth (this goes for the Christian Broadcasting Network, the Catholic Church, or the Islamic Center of Southern California). If you are critical of these organizations and their attempts at monopolizing faith, you are likely to be branded a "pariah."

For example, the "mainstream" Catholic view on premarital sex, divorce, and the use of contraception depends on whether you are defining mainstream by looking at official Church rulings, or the actual practice of most Catholics. Similarly, the views of many Catholic theologians in academia about the import of the Bible differ dramatically from the official Church. And in many cases, they are viewed as "pariahs" by the Church.

As anyone who has been to Riyadh or Jeddah will likely attest, the reality of people's lives (whether it has to do with music, western entertainment, or social mixing) varies greatly from "mainstream" Wahhabi official doctrine. (The fact that the Lebanese satellite TV network LBC morning exercise program, with its attractive, leotard-clad host [see photo], is one of the most popular programs in its timeslot testifies to more than just an aerobically fit Saudi viewership.)

And the same probably goes for the reality of Muslim Americans. What percentage of the nation's estimated 6 million Muslims actually attend a mosque on a regular basis? Chances are we will find a very large number of people, perhaps a majority, who neither belong to a mosque, nor much care what the local imam thinks of them.

According to a study commissioned by American Muslim organizations and whose respondents were local mosque officials, there are approximately 2 million people even vaguely associated with a mosque's activities in the United States. Although that number is likely exaggerated, even when we take it at face value, it indicates that 4 million Muslims, two-thirds of the estimated population in the US, have no relationship whatsoever to a Muslim community institution.

Compare that with the following US Muslim demographic statistics from another study:
· Almost 70% are under forty
· Almost 70% hold a bachelor's degree or higher
· Their median household income is way above the US average.

So why are so many young, well-educated, upwardly mobile Muslims not involved in "official" community activities?

The reality is that most Muslims in the US today don't have a Muslim voice that speaks for them and their life in America. The right way for a woman to cover her hair, the intricacies of ablution, or which side of the street the Prophet would have wanted us to walk on are not the kind of things that likely interest the majority of Muslims in the US.

But unfortunately the Muslim American establishment would rather hold on to their petty fiefdoms than to open their hearts and minds to others.

A case in point is how they treat some of the best Muslim academics, who are usually shunned. After all, they may be thinking, why invite a world-recognized Islamic Studies scholar to lecture on the Qur'an when you can have a gynecologist do it instead.

I suspect that the disconnect between what the majority of Muslims think and do and established Muslim organizations in the US is at least as glaring as the one among Catholic Americans.

The result of such disconnects in the US among other communities has traditionally been: (1) a general alienation leading to a loss of faith or a search for alternative spirituality (e.g. the growth of New Age ideas and interest in "Eastern" philosophy), or (2) the development of a more representative set of religious ideas that redefines the religion for a community or sub-community (e.g. the modern US development of Unitarian/Universalist Christianity in the 18th and 19th centuries and Reform Judaism).

The fact that Islam is very open to transformation/redefinition is illustrated by our rich sectarian history: hundreds of years ago, a multitude of Muslim sub-communities emerged ranging from ones that advocated the concepts of communal property to the transmigration of souls to a living, hidden imam.

Which road will Muslims in America eventually take?

Of course time will tell, but I hope, for the sake of the future of Islam in America, it's not one that will be too pleasing to either Mr. Wolfowitz or the Saudi religious establishment.