Empowering ASJ and Sufi Muslim Networks

April 2011 | By Dr. Hedieh Mirahmadi and Specialist Mehreen Farooq
To some Americans Islam has a “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” split personality disorder. On one hand they see law-abiding Muslim citizens proclaim Islam as a religion of peace, while on the other hand they see Islam represented by suicide bombers who chant “Death to America.” The question of which category the majority of Muslims fall into has generated tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims around the world.

July 2005 | By Specialist Husain Haqqani
This book analyzes the origins of the relationships between Islamist groups and Pakistan’s military, and explores the nation’s quest for identity and security. Tracing how the military has sought U.S. support by making itself useful for concerns of the moment–while continuing to strengthen the mosque-military alliance within Pakistan–Haqqani offers an alternative view of political developments since the country’s independence in 1947.

February 26, 2009 | By Specialist Zeyno Baran
Throughout the world, liberal democracy is once again being challenged both as a political system and, more fundamentally, as an ideology and as a set of beliefs. Whether we like it or not, we are engaged in an ideological struggle—and the US is losing ground. Further spread of Islamism will leave America isolated and powerless to achieve its goals in security and foreign policy.

March 2004 | By Specialist Zeyno Baran
There are three main components of the war of terrorism. One is hunting down the terrorists, and it involves law enforcement, intelligence sharing, and crackdowns on the sources of funding. It also means confronting states that sponsor terrorism. The second component is homeland security. And the third one is the battle of ideas, which is in the first instance a civil war within the Muslim world between moderates and extremists. The US recognizes that it is not a member of the Muslim world and acknowledges that it is not America’s responsibility to make pronouncements on theology. At the same time, no one doubts that the United States has a very important role to play because it can affect what goes on. The US and other members of the international community can de-legitimate terrorism; forging an international consensus that terrorism is beyond the pale is a matter of international law and morality, no matter which political cause is invoked.

December 13, 2002 | Dr. Hedieh Mirahmadi
Under the false pretenses of implementing “Islamic” law, Ansar al-Islam, a radical Islamist group of the Salafi/Wahhabi strain, recently moved into the rugged mountains of northern Iraq and has taken control of the region. These jihadists have forcefully imposed their harsh Wahhabi version of Islamic law on villages in the Hawraman Mountain region, along the border with Iran. As part of this campaign, Ansar al-Islam vandalized the graves of classical Islamic scholars who are revered throughout the region as spiritual guides who promoted traditional Islam and Islamic mysticism.

May 7, 2004 | By Dr. Hedieh Mirahmadi
Sheikh Gailani is the inheritor of the great saint of Baghdad, Abdul Qadir Gailani (d. 1166). For years he maintained the mosque, community center, and school named after his ancestor, where almost 5,000 people were fed every day by his charity. Like many other moderate, religious Iraqi Sunnis (as distinguished from secularists), Sheikh Gailani is a Sufi of the Qadari Sufi Order. Under Saddam Hussein, the Sufis were more or less the only group allowed to run mosques and practice their religion freely. This was because, historically, they were non-political and non-confrontational. A Sufi — an often misused term today — simply means a practicing Muslim who has accepted additional religious duties to achieve heightened spirituality. Traditionally, Sufis have been more interested in their personal relationship with God than with politics, keeping a low profile and maintaining their religious traditions. Sufis can be either Shiite or Sunni.

April 24, 2009 | By Dr. Hedieh Mirahmadi
Though arguably useful in the struggle to defeat Communism in Afghanistan in the late 1980s and early 1990s, cultivating warlords like Hekmatyar who were actually global jihadists is what gave us Al Qaeda. And therein lies the problem. We cannot ignore the ideological underpinnings of our enemy and empower them to fight us another day. The question is how do we tell the difference between a warlord and a global jihadist.

By Specialist Dr. Nazeer Ahmed
In the words of Muhammed Iqbal, the philosopher-poet of India-Pakistan, Islam is like a balloon. When it is squeezed in one direction, it bulges out in another. Within a hundred years after Genghis Khan, Islam conquered the conquerors. The Mongols who had destroyed Bukhara and Baghdad themselves became the standard bearers of the new faith. The westward thrust of Islam carried it into Europe. To the east, it put down new roots in India and Indonesia. The center of gravity of the Islamic world shifted from Cairo and Damascus to Lahore and Kuala Lumpur.