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Minneapolis, MN (August 26, 2010) - As a regularly featured blogger on the Washington Post/Newsweek's "On Faith" blog, Dr. Aseem Shukla, member of HAF's Board of Directors, has the opportunity to provide a Hindu viewpoint on various issues.  Below is Dr. Shukla's latest blog. Please post your comments directly on the "On Faith" site by clicking here.

 

Q: In a recent Wall Street Journal article, terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann said that anti-Muslim rhetoric in America is bad news for anti-terrorism efforts: "We are handing al Qaeda a propaganda coup, an absolute propaganda coup."  By many accounts, the man who could blunt the power of that coup is Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the religious leader behind the planned Islamic Center near Ground Zero. The imam has been surprisingly mum on the issue while he travels in the Middle East. What message of faith could he offer to Muslims and non-Muslims alike that could turn this moment of division into a time of healing?

 

An important dialog about propriety and religious freedom has morphed into one of the most disturbing, polarized and often profane shouting matches over faith in recent memory. But, disturbingly, the person who can most easily defuse a storm that threatens America's vaunted values of tolerance and pluralism, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, is completely and continuously absent from the scene. Absence may make the heart grow fonder; but absence can also make malice grow stronger.

 

When a debate degenerates into a shoving match with competing crowds at the site of the proposed Park 51, a rather peripheral issue has been allowed to fester too long. And in the interim, the soft-pedaling hagiographies penned by his allies and many in the liberal media do no more service to the cause than do the unrepentantly xenophobic attacks of the right.

 

Every mosque builder in the United States is not asked to pass an ideological litmus test prior to getting approval to build. And the imam, as any of us, certainly is free to hold his own interpretations of Islam and political views. After making a bold move for national attention by lavishly proposing a $100 million mosque on Ground Zero land, a different bar is now set. If a sectarian place of worship is to be built near Ground Zero--land that transcends lower Manhattan in a nation's collective consciousness--then it is reasonable to query as to the views of the founder.

 

Before he vacated the debate that he started, as an articulate, ostensibly moderate representative of American Islam, Imam Rauf created a spoken and written record of his views that are now being dissected ad nauseam and in absentia. He would argue that he is being misrepresented, misquoted and misunderstood--but, alas, it is a dilemma of his own making.

 

While Imam Rauf remains in the Middle East, his wife, Daisy Khan, is left holding the bag and only belatedly broke her silence with a media interview on Sunday. She is being asked to clarify his stance on shariah, on the blame behind 9/11 and on and on--an unenviable position, indeed. The imam may have very benign views on many of these crucial questions, but I can't help thinking it is his own quaint but misguided studied silence that creates a vacuum eagerly filled by every possible speculation.

 

There are two simple issues at play: propriety and ideology.

 

The ideological questions burn because of the nebulous explications provided thus far. Shariah is an explosive issue because of the great atrocities committed in its name. Even a so-called moderate shariah practicing state as Malaysia--as we see explored in depth right here on On Faith-- offers very uneven and discriminatory treatment of religious minorities. It is perfectly understandable for moderate Muslims to seek to reclaim the word and imbue it with positive connotations, but by categorically clarifying his views of this subject, Imam Rauf could ameliorate much unease.

 

Similarly, restating his views of the attacks that left a Ground Zero where he now ventures, and confirming the source of the mosque's funding will clear the issue of ideology. Avoid dissembling and speak explicitly I would implore the imam.

 

I hasten to add that all of the information we have seen and heard seems to clearly indicate that Imam Rauf exemplifies the moderation in Islam that must be nurtured and not demonized. His reach in the interfaith community is deep and the allies that stand with him are people and institutions we all trust. He has a track record, and the attempts by some to paint the Park 51 at Ground Zero as some kind of Finsbury mosque of London that Richard Reid, for example, frequented, belies ugly bigotry.

 

Mass hysteria intrinsically is unreasonable and irrational. The imam and his allies do have the power to take the high road; the power to end this tragic sideshow by considering other sites. It is an unfortunate choice to have to make, but silence is not the answer.