Washing Our Dirty Laundry: An Interview with Omid Safi

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Interview by Ahmed Nassef

MWU!: What’s the reaction that you have gotten to your book from Muslim Americans and the traditional establishment leadership like ISNA, MPAC, MSA, and others?

Omid Safi: From Muslims, the reaction so far has been overwhelmingly positive… I’d say as much as 90% positive. I get about 4 or 5 emails a day from people, mostly women, who picked up the book telling me, ‘I thought I was the only one.’ Many of them are socially progressive people who identify with being Muslim but who often feel left out of the Muslim community. But they don’t feel completely comfortable in secular progressive communities either.

The few negative comments I get deal almost exclusively with the essay on homosexuality in the book. These are the emails that usually start with “Brother Omid…” It seems that when some Muslims use “brother” or “sister,” they feel it gives them a license to spew venom. When I think of my own brothers and sisters, I feel nothing but love and affection.

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The American Muslim establishment has definitely been more reserved. This is understandable given the fact that the book explicitly criticizes some of these organizations, as well as the general salafi line of thinking which many of them espouse, and they don’t like to be publicly criticized.

These groups have a right to their opinions, but I think there’s a need for a broader base of opinions that should be heard.

So many times, whenever these groups have been called on to appear in the media, it is usually through a middle aged bearded man with an accent. In the rare times when there is a woman representing these groups, she is almost always very conservatively dressed. We rarely see African Americans, or women not in full hijab…and this certainly is not what our community looks like. Not all Muslim American men have beards, and many Muslim American women don’t wear the full hijab.

MWU!: Progressive Islam so far has been confined to academia. Is it making the transition on a more grassroots level?

OS: There are some important characteristics that distinguish progressive Islam from “liberal” Islam, and that show that it is beginning to move out of the academic setting. First is the role of the Internet. There are several vibrant email discussion lists like the Network of Progressive Muslims (NPM) and the Progressive Muslims Network (PMN). We’re also starting to see younger people taking a leading role. In April, three college-age young people organized a PMN conference in Washington, DC. There was a lot of talk at the conference about starting up a committee on a small scale to establish a progressive mosque in the DC area.

MWU!: Why does it seem like progressive Islam is finding much more vibrancy in the US—more so than in predominantly Muslim countries?

OS: There has been a tendency to call it a “New American Islam.” But that’s not new. People have been talking about a new interpretation of Islam starting in the periphery for many years now. But there are two factors we have to consider. The first is the reality that, even in the age of Ashcroft and other zealots, the freedoms in America are enabling us to have this conversation that we wouldn’t be able to conduct in many Muslim countries. That’s because America has a strong progressive tradition and pre-existing progressive communities.

The second point we should remember is that this is not an American-invented idea. There are similar movements in South Africa, Iran, and Malaysia that are even more sophisticated and generations ahead of where we are here.

MWU!: What has been most influential in shaping your thoughts on Progressive Islam?

OS: Certainly the compassion for all living creatures that is found in Sufism and the writings of Rumi have had a great impact on me. But there is no question that I have also been influenced by other traditions. When I look at the Buddhist emphasis on non-violence, for example, I go back and see how this could be handled in an Islamic context. I would mention Gandhi, Dr. King, the Dalai Lama as major influences.

MWU!: Tell us more about your experience in dealing with the traditional Muslim American establishment.

OS: I get invited much more frequently to talk at synagogues and churches than at mosques.

The national Muslim American organizations don’t take full advantage of Muslim academics. Some people on certain issues will show up, but there is a distrust of scholars who have studied Islamic Studies in the west—it’s that whole "Islamization of Knowledge" garbage. In the end, as Abdolkarim Soroush says, knowledge is knowledge, and a ghettoized and xenophobic mentality will only make us weaker.

MWU!: Are we in the beginnings of what will eventually become a new “progressive” school of thought in Islam with its own institutions—much like the experience of the “Reform” and “Conservative” Jewish movements in the US?

My intuition tells me, yes. When you look at other traditions here, like among the various Jewish trends, there are always vigorous debates, but by and large, no one has a cow about it. So what’s to keep us from having the same thing?

My hope is that progressives don’t automatically collapse into a sectarian mentality. For some of us, this might mean staying inside the traditional institutions within our community and working to change them.

MWU!: On a personal level, have you found a comfort level at your local Muslim institutions? Does a congregation reflect your own basic principles?

OS: We live in a small town in upstate New York, where we’re basically the only Muslims. The main mosque is in Syracuse, about an hour away, and we used to attend regularly. I even sent my oldest child to Sunday school there. But after a while I could not justify to my conscience continuing to go and sending my children there. The Wahhabi influence was just too great. There is a beautiful grand entrance in the front, but only men are allowed to use it. Women have to use a back entrance right next to the trash dumpster and go down to the basement. It felt fake for me to go through the front door and for my wife to have to use the back entrance.

I have found a sense of community, but not exclusively with Muslims. My community includes my students, for example. Last summer, I took 14 students to Turkey where we visited Istanbul and Konya and attended mosques, churches, and dhikr together. By and large, they’re not Muslim, but there is a level of commitment to peace and cultural understanding that is very high.

MWU!: What is the most important challenge for progressive Muslims?

OS: Current US foreign policy is so myopic and unilateral, not just toward Muslim countries, but even toward Europe and the UN, that there is a growing chorus of anti-Americanism. But sometimes I worry about progressive Islam being reduced to anti-Americanism and a modified Marxism. We have to make sure there is a viable spiritual component at the heart of a progressive understanding of Islam.

MWU!: Neocons, like Paul Wolfowitz and Daniel Pipes, have called for a re-interpretation of Islam and have lauded “moderates.” Are progressive Muslims unwittingly supporting those same people that have targeted the larger Muslim community?

OS: I worry tremendously about it. When I heard that Wolfowitz was reading Taking Back Islam, I thought, I am in that book. Did he just skip my chapter which featured detailed critiques of US foreign policy? There will be an opportunity for some Muslims to receive large funding from the US government, but I prefer to remain completely autonomous. Wolfowitz, Friedman, and Pipes should not tell us what a reformed Islam will look like. That’s up to us. My litmus test is: do these people show equal compassion and concern toward all human life on this planet? Or rather, do they value the humanity and concerns of some over others? That’s why I would much rather work with a progressive Christian or Jewish theologian than with someone like Wolfowitz.

MWU!: Do you worry about Muslims airing “their dirty laundry?”

OS: I am not concerned with airing dirty laundry. I want to wash our dirty laundry.

As progressive Muslims, we must show compassion and humility. Compassion so we don’t just become another empty ideology—we have to be willing to transform ourselves and humanity. Humility because we’re really only in the toddler stages of this movement. We’re doing all this both for the people that we share this planet with now, as well as for our children and their children—the changes are not going to happen overnight.

Omid Safi is assistant professor of Islamic Studies at Colgate University and author of Progressive Muslims.

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