Secular Muslim Finds Much to Fear

Today the United States reverberates with drumbeats of war, first against Osama, and now against Saddam. But there also is a dark, palpable aspersion against Islam. As Americans hear of terror erupting from all corners of the globe, U.S. Muslims are made to feel as if they have something to explain: Are they responsible for what is being done in the name of their religion?

“No people can be explained by their national religion. They do not feel responsible for it; it lies outside of them.” So wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson, a celebrated American with not much affection for any religion. Emerson’s prescience is inspiring because he rejected sweeping judgments about a whole people. To maintain otherwise, he suggested, was to assert that any or all actions of Italians could be explained by their Roman Catholicism; or all Hindus by vegetarianism or beliefs in ahimsa (nonviolence).

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, tragedy, a new and painful chapter has opened in the story of U.S. Muslims who largely have been below the radar for most of their existence in this land. Never in almost half a century of living in the U.S. had I found it necessary to explain or hide my cultural affinities. It pains me to admit that things are different.

As a strictly secular individual without a religion that I practice, I define myself as a cultural Muslim -- someone with a Muslim name, who speaks Urdu, reads Farsi and Arabic, and has a fond appreciation of the art, music and delectable cuisines associated with the religion. Our stories need to be told.

Not being too grounded in Islamic theology, I choose here to eschew any treatment of its intricacies; instead I will remind readers that the Koran -- the holy book for Muslims -- contains extensive overlaps with the Old Testament. It has the parables of Noah and the flood, Jonah and the fish, Abraham and Isaac and his sacrifice, Joseph and his jealous brothers, etc. The core commonalities of all religions seek to define a good moral person, a good life as it is to be lived, or a good, just society. In this, all religions stand together.

There is no simple and direct answer to what it means to be a Muslim and to what Islam teaches as a religion. It would be just as problematic to answer these questions for any other religion. Each of the world’s great religions have not only fought other faiths but also spawned sects that have fought internecine turf battles throughout their troubled histories. There has also been a time-honored tradition of the many disaffected from traditional religions of priests, prelates and ayatollahs: Secular humanism is their answer. Secularism has existed as a parallel philosophy as well as a reaction to doctrinaire religions. According to German sociologist Max Weber, it is the very foundation of modernity.

I was born in India to an agnostic Muslim father, a teacher of English literature who in conversations with me on religion asked more questions than he gave answers. At lunch he would come home and have me read aloud the Indian and British newspaper editorials. He asked me pointed questions such as “Why do you think the British treated the Irish, or Indian freedom fighters, the way they did [that is, contrary to British ideals]?”

In turn, I have raised my own U.S.-born children in a secular fashion. Muslims like me sympathize with the Muslims of the world and abhor the indignity and tyranny they suffer. We also abhor the suffering they may cause others and grieve with those who are hurt, be they Americans, Israelis or Palestinians. There has been enough suffering to go around.

Today, I find myself facing this new phase in American Islam. I am asking questions that I never asked before. I have become aware once again of my “otherness.” I am seeking answers to my new troubles spawned by the unfortunate events of Sept. 11. I now cringe when I have to tell anyone my full name. I feel threatened by people with a simplistic view of this otherwise complex, polyglot, checkered global village of ours.

The angry quest to place blame should not trample upon the rights of individuals who must be presumed innocent from the outset. The argument, though, is a constitutional one, not religious.

Muslims are deeply puzzled and hurt at being maligned as haters, killers and malevolent -- sometimes by people of goodwill, including some religious leaders. We are driven by such people to wonder, “Why do they hate us?” The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. cautioned that while people who are the object of hate suffer indignity, those who hate suffer more because they dehumanize themselves.

Events since Sept. 11 have not awakened in me an urge to turn to religion. But they have led to incisive soul searching as to who I am, and to a deep anguish about a world whose leaders seem to be losing their moral equilibrium, aimlessly striking at any and all easy targets. Someone once defined a fanatic as one who, having lost his sense of direction, redoubles his effort. If you search with a dispassionate eye, you will find them in more than one place. Sadly.