{"id":17,"date":"2008-07-30T16:20:22","date_gmt":"2008-07-30T16:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2008\/07\/obama-finally-reaching-out-to.html"},"modified":"2008-07-30T16:20:22","modified_gmt":"2008-07-30T16:20:22","slug":"obama-finally-reaching-out-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/07\/obama-finally-reaching-out-to.html","title":{"rendered":"Obama (finally!) Reaching Out to American Muslims"},"content":{"rendered":"

After some major bumps along the way, there is finally a very
\nencouraging sign in terms of the relationship between the historic Obama
\nPresidential campaign and the six million strong American Muslim
\ncommunity.   <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Obama campaign has had a complex relationship with Muslims.
\n  Muslims have loved Obama, but for long time the campaign hasn’t
\nseemed to love them back.   Part of the challenge of course has been
\nthat the corporate media, sadly combined with the Hilary Clinton campaign, has
\noften sought to appeal to the worst qualities among many Americans by calling
\nObama Muslim.  While these have been led by much of Right wing media, even
\nthe recent issue of New Yorker, which depicted the Obamas in “Muslim”
\ngarb dressed as terrorists contributed to this environment. In fact about
\n12% of Americans still<\/i>
\nbelieve Obama is Muslim<\/a>. While stating the obvious (that Obama has been a
\ncommitted Christian who got married in a church and has raised his family
\nChristian), it took the Obama campaign far too long to come out and state
\nthe obvious about the “Muslim smear”:<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

You know, this
\nis actually an insult against Muslim-Americans, something that we don’t spend a
\nlot of time talking about. And sometimes I’ve been derelict in pointing that
\nout.<\/p>\n

You know, there are wonderful Muslim-Americans all across the country who are
\ndoing wonderful things. And for this to be used as sort of an insult, or to
\nraise suspicions about me, I think is unfortunate. And it’s not what America’s all
\nabout. <\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

One of the signs of things going the right way is Obama’s
\nappointment of a National
\nCoordinator for Muslim Affairs<\/a>. What a stark difference from the choice of
\nthe Bush white house:  When Dubya appointed a Muslim representative to the
\nOrganization of Islamic Conference, the choice was a rich Texas businessman
\n(shockingly, that sounds familiar) named Sada Cumber<\/a> with
\nzero standing in the American Muslim community and celebrated only by
\nNeoconservatives at the Weekly
\nStandard<\/a><\/i>. Cumber was such an unknown that even many longtime
\nMuslim community leaders had to google the person that had been appointed to
\nrepresent America
\nto Muslims worldwide!  It was universally taken as a sad and pathetic
\nreflection of the Bush administration’s lack of engagement with American
\nMuslims.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 In contrast, Obama’s point person is Mazen Asbahi, a
\nlongtime Chicago
\nlawyer with heavy involvement at the grassroots level of the Muslim community
\nthere.   Even more positive is Asbahi’s involvement with the Nawawi Foundation<\/a>, one of the leading centers
\nof Muslim thought in North America. The Nawawi
\nFoundation has been built around a leading scholar, Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah, a
\nwhite American convert who has complete command of the intellectual and
\nspiritual heritage of Islam.    In brilliant papers available
\nonline, the Nawawi Foundation has argued for ways that American Muslims can
\ncome to harmonize their spiritual heritage  as Muslims with their cultural
\nmatrix as citizens of the West, by looking to often overlooked examples of
\nMuslim minorities like those of Chinese Muslims<\/a>. It is
\nthis type of subtle and imaginative Islamic thought, with “street
\ncred” in the Muslim community and rooted in the tradition that is likely
\nto provide the most enduring answers to the “clash of civilizations”
\nnonsense.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

If this is the type of imaginative Muslim contacts that Obama is
\nusing, people that can both draw on the richest heritage of Islam and have
\nactual standing in the American Muslim community, maybe there is hope yet for a
\nhealthy relationship between Obama and American Muslims.  That is not only
\ngood news for the Obama campaign and American Muslims, it is also very much
\ngood news for all of us who want to see a different model of relationship
\nbetween America
\nand Muslim-majority regions.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After some major bumps along the way, there is finally a very encouraging sign in terms of the relationship between the historic Obama Presidential campaign and the six million strong American Muslim community.   The Obama campaign has had a complex relationship with Muslims.   Muslims have loved Obama, but for long time the campaign hasn’t seemed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":160,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election-08","category-muslims"],"yoast_head":"\nObama (finally!) 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