The Challenge of the Moderates

Jonathan Hayden is an assistant to noted Islam scholar Professor Akbar Ahmed. Hayden spent more than a year organizing Ahmed’s 10-week, eight-country trip through the Middle East, South Asia, and the Far East, and is conducting research for Ahmed’s forthcoming book, “Islam in the Age of Globalization.”

 

Hayden joined Ahmed on the last stage of his journey in Malaysia and Indonesia, during which he learned first-hand about the complex realities for moderate Muslims. Here he offers advice and chronicles his experiences for Beliefnet.

 

In Jakarta, Indonesia, I handed out a questionnaire to a class of 50 college students at an Islamic University that was designed reveal their feelings toward the West, globalization, and changes within Islam. The class was about 70 percent women, ages 19-23. Their hijab was mandatory, but if the women were to take it off, they would’ve looked like any college class in America.

 

They were sweet, funny kids who wanted to take pictures afterward and ask questions about the U.S.. Why, then, did roughly 75 percent of them list as their role models people like Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Ayatollah Khomeini, Yousef al-Qardawi (of Al-Jazeera), Yassir Arafat, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? We obviously have a problem.

 

If these young students are choosing as heroes people who are hostile to the US., what can we do to change this? What has led to this? Who can help us? And where are the moderate Muslims? We must try to answer these questions if we are to build bridges with countries with a largely Muslim population and avert the “clash of civilizations.”

 

The answers obviously do not come easily and will take much time to answer. But one of the things I noticed in Malaysia and Indonesia is the vital role that moderate Muslims will play. I hesitate to use the word “moderate” because of its negative connotations. From what I’ve gathered, moderatesare viewed as people who are unwilling to stand up for anything.

 

But the people that I am talking about when I use the term “moderate Muslim” are those who are standing up for the true identity of Islam while actively living in this “age of globalization.” From what I’ve learned in this trip, moderate Muslims are practicing the compassionate and just Islam that is taught in the Qu’ran without rejecting modernity and the West. They are, as I learned, hardly weak.

 

There were two people that I met who were particularly impressive. Through them I began to understand the challenge that moderate Muslims are up against: Dr. Ismail Noor of Kuala Lumpur and Dr. M. Syafi'i Anwar of Jakarta are Muslims fighting against formidable odds to create a dialogue between Islam and the West. They are facing a monumental task with their hands tied behind their backs. And I am ashamed to say, we are not helping them.