Shaykh Hamza Yusuf and Imam Zaid Shakir, modernizing Islam in America?

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf and Imam Zaid Shakir, called 'up and coming' leaders of Islam in the United States, are two individuals that deserve some close scrutiny.   What do they believe and what do they teach?

After the recent terror arrests in Canada, at least one imam came forward to denouced the actions of the 17 arrested Muslims saying, "We have failed our children." This was taken as hopeful that imams in the west were willing to modernize Islam.   Now some imams in America are speaking out (video here) in the New York Times
"U.S. Muslim Clerics Seek a Modern Middle Ground" (Hat tip HAHmed).  The article is so positive, so complimentary, so glowing ... it is obvious how impressed the author is about these two men.  It's almost a love-fest.

You can go read the entire article.  I have a portion of it here to give you a 'feel' for Yusuf and Shakir.  Let me share a few things that I feel you really should know about Shaykh Hamza Yusuf and Imam Zaid Shakir before you get all wrapped up in the sweet article itself:

Mr. Shakir:  "He and his wife, Saliha, became Muslims in the Air Force. He had joined the military as a teenager in the lull after Vietnam because his mother had died and he had no means. His name was Ricky Mitchell, and his mother had raised him and his siblings in housing projects in Georgia — where he remembers going to his grandparents' farm and picking cotton — and in New Britain, Conn."

Mr. Shakir published a pamphlet in 1992.  "A copy of the pamphlet was found in the apartment of a suspect in the first World Trade Center bombing, in 1993. Mr. Shakir says he was questioned by the F.B.I., but had no link to the man, and that was the end of it."

"While studying in Syria a few years later, he visited Hama, a city that had tried to revolt against the Syrian ruler, Hafez al-Asad."

On Islam's goal for America, "He said he still hoped that one day the United States would be a Muslim country ruled by Islamic law, "not by violent means, but by persuasion."

"Every Muslim who is honest would say, I would like to see America become a Muslim country," he said. "I think it would help people, and if I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be a Muslim."

On polygamy, "...  which is permitted in Islam, is appropriate in the modern context.  Mr. Shakir told the students that Islam allows polygamy because it was a "practical" and "compassionate" solution in some cases, as when women are widowed in war."

Mr. Yusuf:  "His fame grew after he was invited to the White House nine days after Sept. 11, making him the only Muslim leader along with five other religious leaders who were called to meet with President Bush. He suggested that Mr. Bush change the name of the military's impending operation in Afghanistan, "Infinite Justice," because it would offend Muslims, who believe the only source of infinite justice is God. Mr. Bush responded by changing the operation's name, to "Operation Enduring Freedom," and in the news media Mr. Yusuf gained a title other than sheik: "adviser to the president."

American-born Muslim converts, Shaykh Hamza Yusuf and Imam Zaid Shakir, are rising leaders of Islam in America. 

Mr. Yusuf, 48, and Mr. Shakir, 50, are using their clout to create the first Islamic seminary in the United States, where they hope to train a new generation of imams and scholars who can reconcile Islam and American culture.

The seminary is still in its fledgling stages, but Mr. Yusuf and Mr. Shakir have gained a large following by being equally at home in Islamic tradition and modern American culture. Mr. Yusuf dazzles his audiences by weaving into one of his typical half-hour talks quotations from St. Augustine, Patton, Eric Erikson, Jung, Solzhenitsyn, Auden, Robert Bly, Gen. William C. Westmoreland and the Bible. He is the host of a TV reality show that is popular in the Middle East, in which he takes a vanload of Arabs on a road trip across the United States to visit people who might challenge Arab stereotypes about Americans, like the antiwar protesters demonstrating outside the Republican National Convention. ...

Mr. Shakir mixes passages from the Koran with a few lines of rap, and channels accents from ghetto to Valley Girl. Some of his students call him the next Malcolm X — out of his earshot, because he so often preaches the importance of humility.

Both men draw overflow crowds in theaters, mosques and university auditoriums that seat thousands. Their books and CD's are pored over by young Muslims in study groups. As scholars and proselytizers for of the faith, they have a much higher profile than most imams, as Muslim clerics who are usually in charge of mosques are known. Their message is that both Islam and America have gone seriously astray, and American Muslims have a responsibility to harness their growing numbers and economic power to help set them straight. ...

They say that Islam must be rescued from extremists who selectively cite Islamic scripture to justify terrorism.  Though Mr. Yusuf and Mr. Shakir do not denounce particular scholars or schools of thought, their students say the two are challenging the influence of Islam's more reactionary sects, like Wahhabism and Salafism, which has been spread to American mosques and schools by clerics trained in Saudi Arabia. Where Wahhabism and Salafism are often intolerant of other religions — even of other streams within Islam — Mr. Yusuf and Mr. Shakir teach that Islam is open to a diversity of interpretations honed by centuries of scholars.

He asked the audience to pray for the victims of kidnappers in Iraq, saying that kidnapping is just as bad as American bombings in which the military dismisses the civilians killed as "collateral damage."

"They're both sinister, as far as I'm concerned," he said. "One is efficient, the other is pathetic."

Both Mr. Shakir and Mr. Yusuf have a history of anti-American rhetoric, but with age, they have tempered their views.  source

Planck's Constant has a wonderful post, "Why Muslims like to be amputated, tortured and abused".  This post related directly to the above article in that it stresses the importance of Islam 'modernizing' if it is to survive in the west and looks at reasons why it has not done so to date.

He begins with a wonderful story of a pracital joke that he enjoys playing on unsuspecting folks that will make you laugh.  (I won't spoil it by publishing it here, you can go read it yourself.) 

Then he makes a smooth transition into why people who have been the butt of jokes turn around and play the same jokes on others.

They've been abused - now it's someone else's turn.

How else to explain why seemingly intelligent people would want a barbaric, brutal, uncivilized, vicious, vengeful, egregiously unjust system of Law placed upon themselves?  Islam is a religion of damaged goods. It spreads the same way child abuse and pedophilia spreads.  MORE

Mere Rhetoric comments on an L.A. Times article on the good things that Islamists do.

... when Muslim armies take over the capital of a country in a kind of modern-day Islamist Domino Effect, of course there are many different ways to view the situation. Perhaps the Los Angeles Times thinks that headlining the story with "Islamists Sow Calm, and Concern, in Southern Somalia", is the most objective way to describe the situation. Or maybe they're just terrorist apologists who excuse their moral incoherence with self-satisfied and comforting slogans about their own sophistication. Anything's possible. Next up: "Islamists Sow Calm, and Concern, in Paris".

Do these two main stream media articles show that the press has blinders on, that they do not see Islam for what it really is?  Or is there change taking place within the religion that perhaps give hope for the future?  I report, you decide.

Cross posted at In the Bullpen

Also posting:

Charming, Just Charming, "Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid"

Brothers Judd, "Reformations-R-US"

Western Resistance, "Pakistan: Muslim Clerics Refuse Funeral Rites To Murdered "Blasphemer"

Amygdala, "U.S. Islam"

LGF, "NYT Shills for Islam"

DNSI Harvard, "Muslim American Mothers Speak for Tolerance"

123beta, "Open Trackback Weekend"

Comments

[WG]

As'salam u alaikum. You seem to be trying very hard to slander brother hamza yusuf and others. The time, energy and effort you have put into dissecting and assuming meanings from discussions he has had is extensive. Mashallah that time would be more wisely spent on self reflection and change. If the actions of another are wrong point them out to that person so they may reflect and change, why are you launching a personal attack on another brother on the internet?

[Malika]

You can't judge if a cake is good or not before you taste it by yourself.
So taste it without being a sheep following blindly those who want to judge in your behalf.
Even if the world is shouting, screaming against islam. Look for it sincerely thanks to the Qu'ran and the biography of the prophet Muhammad. If God wants, you will see that most of people are wrong. Don't be a sheep. You are more than that, you are a human being...

[Ole Blue]

Religion is a psychological disease effecting people who have a pack mentality, have the need to belong to a group, and long for an alpha dog type person to lead them.

[Sulayman]

Now this is getting silly. What about the Hasidic jews in America? Are they "not modernized" because of how traditional they are?

Yes, they wish America became Islamic, in that people convert to Islam. Look at Indonesia, it became Muslim through mass conversion and not violence. Every religion wants one of their own as president; a Jewish president for example. It's not the threatening thing you imagine, and the New York Times article leaves no room for doubt as to the intention of the scholars in saying that.

Come visit Masjid Taqwa in Bedford Ave, Brooklyn. Since so many people in the area converted to Islam, crime and drugs went way down. The Muslims started a neighborhood watch campaign and managed to clean the neighborhood. The city even awarded Imam Siraj Wahaj with a special recognition award.

[GUYK]

The comment that the mullah wanted to see the USA as a muslim country under muslim law was enough for me to see through the moderate BS. Islam is not now nor never was a moderate religion. No country can be an Islamic country and hope to offer freedom of religion, press, and expression..it is against the tenets of the religion.

[Debbie]

Mujahideen Ryder, I will have to go back and look at the video again. Since I don't know what you look like, it may be hard to find you. ha

[Mujahideen Ryder]

Nice! By the way im in the video with my laptop :-D