[ppfpooghn]

Your comment has raised some important issues. May be , you should start a new thread. In the current thread, I would request your feedback about the obstacles faced by the practising brothers living in the West and Australia.

Assalamu alaikum Curious Traveller,

Muslims all over the world are facing difficult challenges. For those in the West these challenges are compounded by social dislocation and political isolation.

Classical scholars divided the world into two realms: dar al-Islam and dar al-harb. This emerged directly from the perception, or the belief, that Islam creates a social environment that supports religious practice and that this, in turn, is directly tied to a nurturing of faith. A simple dichotomy was easy to understand and worked for a while, although from the very beginning Muslims' experiences in Abyssinia during the first Hijra confirmed that a third "abode" also existed: dar al-sulh. All three describe a cultural and political space in which our lives unfold.

A major challenge for Western Muslims is to create a cultural space for themselves and then, within this space, to begin to discover an identity. This is not as easy as it might seem. Western countries vary widely in their social view of foreigners and immigrants while Muslims themselves may come from isolated places that have seen little movement of people in or out, and so are not equipped to deal with diversity, not even within their own communities.

I see two points of tension here:

• there is a tension between the Muslim minority in a place and the majority community. This tension centers on Muslims attempts to carve out a cultural space for themselves within their new societies;
• there is a tension within the Muslim community, now composed of many diverse elements which have not been in direct contact with one another before, or, alternatively, which have brought old rivalries with them from somewhere else.

There was a thread here last week that illustrated the tension that can arise in the first category, negotiation of the interface between immigrant and national cultures. A woman who said she was of Lebanese origin described a problem she was having with her father, who had suddenly begun imposing restrictions on her which made he feel that he no longer trusted her. She also described a spiritual crisis she was having at the discovery of the "sexist" nature of Arab or Muslim society and the position of women in Islam.

Both issues arise from a natural process of negotiating cultural space. This woman's father continues to act as though he were in Lebanon, and perceives great danger to his daughter and his family since the social protection he traditionally relied upon has disappeared. There may or may not be a danger - that is immaterial. Perception is everything. Her spiritual turbulence is caused by her own lack of cultural literacy: she does not fully understand Lebanese Muslim culture and society and she does not fully understand the culture and society of the place where she is, so she cannot rationally respond to criticism from either side. Her tendency will be to go with the stronger cultural force - that of the place where she lives, but this exacerbates tensions with her family and makes her father even more anxious.

Tensions within diverse elements of the Muslim community in whatever country are probably easier for most people to understand since we can see factions and national communities and observe their interaction. Because we can see this easily, we do find more people discussing this problem and looking for solutions.

Fundamentalists will say that the solution to both problems is in Islam, and they are right. The problem is that they each look at Islam and come up with different types of solutions. Some become hyper-observant, criticize parents and elders, and cut themselves off from the mainstream community and seek refuge in the traditions and practices of their homelands. They build walls around themselves to create ghettos. They split into factions. They start to see themselves as uniquely guided. They reassure themselves but not the community, which they largely reject. It is possible to do this and we have seen Jews and Christians do the same thing - the Hassidic communities in Europe and America, and Mennonites, Amish, and Mormons in America have all done this.

Others attempt to re-invent themselves as American, Australian, and British Muslims. This causes great anxiety among many since they see assimilation as a direct challenge to their "Muslim" identity. Because they often have difficulty separating Islam from their national cultures, they cannot understand how an American, Australian, or British Islam could even exist at all.

The first step in resolving any problem is to understand it. This is my understanding of the problem. Others will differ. The details are not important. The important thing to realize is that there is a solution an that each of us can find it as individuals, and that each community can also find it together, if we look, talk, and struggle to understand the world and our place in it as Muslims. This is what Muslims have always done. The answer is in the past, and it is in the future.

Salaam,

Abu Marwan