'Take Five' with Salam Al-Marayati: Myths, Reform, and the Path Forward

November 17, 2006


Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 11/16/06
Click here to read the entire article.

Salam Al-Marayati, Executive Director of the Los Angeles-based Muslim Public Affairs Council, will talk on "Overcoming Exclusion and Bigotry in America" in a free lecture at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Islamic Society of Milwaukee.

The council, with an office in Washington, D.C., lobbies for American Muslims' civil rights and has other activities. It denounced the Taliban in Afghanistan and condemned suicide bombings in Israel, the Ayatollah Khomeini's call for novelist Salman Rushdie's death and the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Al-Marayati was among 15 Muslim American leaders President Bush met with after the attacks. Tom Heinen of the Journal Sentinel staff spoke with him.

Q. You say bigotry is worsening at political levels and lessening at the grass roots, where people get to know Muslims. The stereotypes?

A. That Islam is innately violent, oppresses women and is against Jews and Christians. Those are what the hate-mongers are exploiting, because they take an example of a Muslim who is extremist as if that is a demonstration of Islam, not an aberration of it.

Q. You call for Muslims here to be seen as part of the solution. Is that happening?

A. Muslim Americans are playing a constructive role, and our contention is that our services are not being utilized by our government as much as they should be. Some people say that the moderate Muslim message is not loud enough. We've been speaking, but nobody's listening. We need to amplify our voice. It is a voice against extremism, for the theology of inclusion and against the theology of hate, and for the theology of love and compassion and mercy that is based on the authentic message of Islam. That is the only way we are going to defeat al-Qaida.

Q. A short definition of "moderate"?

A. Our definition is, one who renounces and speaks out against violence as an instrument of political change, one who is authentic - a conservative or a liberal - in terms of Islamic tradition and is accepted by the Muslim mainstream as a voice in the community. Otherwise the moderate our government is dealing with has no influence on the streets in the Muslim world or in the Muslim community here . . . The mainstream (of Muslims) fits our definition.

Q. Reform in Islam?

A. It's happening. There also have been people calling for reform for the last 500 years, well-established scholars. Reform has been part of the religion. We don't have to throw away Islam to have reform. The approach toward issues related to women, non-Muslims, human rights and democracy has been part of the discussion. We now have books on the issues (and) discussions in all mosques. Our fellow Americans should be aware of that. The image, however, is quite the opposite.

Q. And overseas?

A. In America, because we have more freedom to discuss, it's probably happening at a much faster pace. You read about conferences in Jordan, in Egypt. Even in Saudi Arabia they are talking about how to reform. But reform must address socio-political realities in the Muslim world and in the West. . . . We have a long way to go.

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