On Wahhabism (3 of 3)

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Lopez: How would you like to see the U.S. deal with Saudi Arabia?

Schwartz: First, we have to demand, and obtain, from the Saudi
authorities, a thorough and transparent accounting of Wahhabi-Saudi
involvement in 9/11 ? the ideological background, funding, recruitment
? everything. This is indispensable for our own moral health.

Second, we have to demand that the Saudi state cut off all support for
the international export of Wahhabi extremism.

Third, we have to support traditional Muslims in their efforts to
oppose Wahhabi influence and restore theological pluralism within Islam.

Lopez: How can the U.S. deal with the Wahhabism within its borders?

Schwartz: First, the Saudi embassy must be informed that all support
for Wahhabi extremist activity, including mosques and schools, in the
U.S. must end. Wahhabi hatemongering institutions like the Institute of
Islamic and Arabic Sciences in America (IIASA), in Fairfax, Va. and the
World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) in Alexandria, Va., as well as
the U.S. office of the International Islamic Relief Organization
(IIRO), should be shut down completely. Their assets should be seized
and their facilities padlocked.

Second, the U.S. government has no alternative but to monitor extremist
discourse among Muslims in this country, including in mosques and in
prison missions. Nobody would object, on grounds of protection for
religious advocacy, to federal investigation of terrorist incitement
among Christian antiabortion activists or ultraextremist Jews. No such
exemption can be granted Muslims.

Third, U.S. non-Muslims of good will must assist and support
traditional Muslims in creating an Islamic establishment in this
country that is loyal to our government and to our traditions of
interreligious respect. There is no obstacle to this in traditional
Islam. But this also requires opposition to Islamophobia ? the
incitement of hatred against Islam as a faith ? among non-Muslims.

Lopez: You are identified with Sufism. What attracted you to Islam?
When and why did you make the plunge?

Schwartz: This is a personal matter and a long, involved story, but I
will say this: I am a Sufi, and a disciple of the great 13th century
Spanish Muslim mystic Ibn Arabi. I believe with him in the unity of the
monotheistic faiths. Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship one God ?
the same God ? Creator of the universe. We should therefore see one
another as, ultimately, members of a single religion, not three
distinct and hostile faiths. As I have put it: from the Jews, we
receive the Sacred Law; from the Christians, the message of love and
solidarity in the world; from the Muslims, intensity of belief.

I was attracted to Islam because of my origins in California.
California is a place with immense Spanish influence. Spanish culture
is a blend of Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions. I had a long
and close relationship with Catholics, and Spanish Catholic thought
shows a deep Islamic impress. As I traveled and wrote in California,
Latin America, and Spain, I became increasingly interested in Islamic
civilization. I was also interested in the considerable connections
between Islamic spirituality and the Jewish tradition of mysticism, or
Kabbalah.

Further, I was intrigued, beginning 35 years ago, by the connection
between Islamic spirituality and such non-Islamic traditions as Central
Asian shamanism and Buddhism. Long ago and far away, I once thought
seriously of becoming an academic in this area.

But my real knowledge of Sufism and of Islam emerged from my literary,
historical, journalistic, and humanitarian engagement with the Bosnian
Muslims and Albanian Catholics and Muslims, during the Balkan Wars of
the 1990s.

My authentic education in these issues came during many years of work
with the Daniel Dajani, S.J., Albanian Catholic Institute, in San
Francisco. Albanian Catholics are remarkable in that although they
resisted Turkish rule, and defended their faith at great risk, they
never developed an Islamophobic mentality. They viewed the Turks as
oppressors but the Muslims as believers. While working with the
Albanian Catholics I also began to study Albanian Sufism, which is the
only example of a really vigorous indigenous Sufism present in Europe
today. I later studied the Sufi influence in Bosnian Islam, as well.

I went to live and work in Bosnia-Hercegovina and the Albanian lands,
and the rest fell into place. But that story must wait for another
time, and much more elaboration, except to note the essential lesson:
no Muslims in the world have suffered more than the Bosnians in recent
times. Yet neither the Bosnians nor the Albanian Muslims ever turned to
Wahhabism or Islamic extremism. They remain Europeans, and their Islam
is European. Indeed, I believe Balkan Islam represents a powerful
Islamic force for interfaith reconciliation in the West and the world.







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What's On In Goa (WOIG): 
Nov 06 Children's book exhibn opens, Walkabout, Anjuna... (all weekdays)
Nov 06 ArtHouse, Calangute: Chaitali's acrylics on canvas till 19.11
Nov 07 Revision of electoral rolls (till Nov 30) See schedule.
Dec 01 Two day conference, Goa Agenda. IT For Society. (Ends 2.12) 
Every Sunday: Music therapy sessions at Moira, 5 pm. 278, N.Portugal

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