American Muslim Agenda - What is it?

What is that Americans Muslims want? How close are they to what you want? What can they do about it? What are your issues with each other? If you are a conservative, grudgingly, you'll see the value in this book, and if you are a moderate, you'll dance and sing along with joy.

You and I have a responsibility to create a world where, you, me, and our grandchildren can live without apprehensions. No matter we go, we should feel secure about faith, race, ethnicity, culture and our political and sexual orientation.

Would the book American Muslim Agenda bring attitudinal change among Muslims?  Yes, it will, it’s akin to planting seeds and nurturing it to give the beneficence to the next generation. I know most American Muslims will wholeheartedly subscribe to the refreshed understanding of Islam, we need to expand it to more Americans.

Some of the reservations we have about Muslims and Islam are based on what we have heard from our parents, teachers, clergy, favorite media people and others.  We need to find the truth on our own and find freedom from misunderstandings. It is a blessing to be free.

Muslims have shied away from confronting difficult issues about their faith, and most of them don't even have a clue about the essence of Islam, it was never articulated before in the history of Islam. 

A few medieval scholars have reduced Islam to rituals, five pillars, dhimmi, jizya, sharia, externalities, and enforcement of your rules on to others. That is not Islam, and most Muslims can recite verses that Islam is about free will. God uploaded free will into Adam’s DNA, and emphasized it in the Quran, the prophet practiced ‘freewill’ and established examples for it. Sadly, Muslims know the truth but were bullied into silence with fatwa bombs. All I have done is articulated what Muslims believe, but dared not say it. The book is the voice of the majority of ‘American’ Muslims.

This book is a product of twenty years of research and thousands of discussions in which Muslims, non-Muslims, and “Islamophobes” have participated in it, including debates on Fox News with Sean Hannity, Stuart Varney, Pamela Geller, Brigitte Gabrielle, Robert Spencer, Jamie Glazov, Raymond Ibrahim, Walid Shoebat, Wafa Sultan, and several others.  

Islam is about living your life and letting others live theirs. Islam is about building cohesive societies where all of God's creation lives with dignity and freedom. In God’s universe, we are merely a speck, and no one is more privileged than the other. If you are a moderate individual of any faith, you will find the book in tune with you.

It is time to go beyond the five pillars of Islam, and I hope the Imams and Muslim scholars who are free thinkers would appreciate the contents of the book. This book may indeed become a reference manual for teaching Islamic values that contribute to creating a better world for all humanity.

The American Muslim Agenda offers guidance to Muslims to be one with all, and it voices what Muslims believe and live with and empowers them to live their lives and let others live with free will.  The book opens the door to people of other faiths to shed their biases and join hands in creating a world of safety, security, and harmony for all humanity.

Islam is a public religion, and Muslims don't own it exclusively. You are invited to participate in discussions, including your faith.  The book is expected to initiate conversations about the nature of Islam and fellow humans. I welcome your criticism (after reading the book).

You can get the book by calling 1-888-795-4274 x 4528 or get it from Amazon online or a book store. You can find the talking points at www.AmericanMuslimAgenda.com.

Dr. Mike Ghouse is committed to building a cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day. His new book, the “American Muslim Agenda” is about everything you wanted to know about Muslims. The book is available at Xlibris and Amazon. Mike is a public speaker, author, interfaith wedding officiant, and the executive director of the Center for Pluralism in Washington, DC. More about him at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeghouse/

Sharia Politics - My random thoughts

Sharia law like any law is mis-implemented from time to time; innocent people get on the electric chair or the lethal injection in our own US of A. In at least 3 out of 56 Muslim majority nations, wrong people get stoned to death for adultery or blasphemy. It is neither our laws nor Sharia that is wrong; it is the mis-application to suit the ones in power that is wrong.

Parents are not to abuse Children, yet, incest and beating of innocent children continues. The men who beat their wives violently are Muslim, Christian, Jews, Hindus… and every one, it is not the Christian or Islam thing – it is the precisely because they did not get their own religion to guide them, even if they wear a loud label of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism or any religion or tradition and even if they go the Church, Mosque, Synagogue, Temple… you see them in all groups.

Qur’aan is a binary book, everything is addressed in pairs - when it talks about male, it is followed by the word female, day follows night, and life follows death. Traditionally Quraanic interpretations have been done my men, like in all other religions. Thank God, women contributions are pouring in and bringing a balance to the meaning of the words in Qur’aan.

Sharia interpretations have been men-appeasing and justice busting in some, but not all the cases. A very small percent of Muslim women endure the non-sense of men's Sharia misapplication - while women across the world be it in America or Arabia, Chile or China, Native American or African are mistreated in jobs, harassment continues unabated, violence, rape... all of these are shameful acts that few men have stood up against. We need the majority to speak up.

Great example is the interpretation of the word Daraba, which suited the men “to discipline the woman if she does not remain faithful to you” to “separation” by Dr Leila Bakhtiar that most people are subscribing to now, which was covered very well in the www.Quraanconference.com . Michelle Bachman talks about obedience to husband, rather than partnership. More women in America are violently killed by their spouse than anywhere else in the world; does that make Christian faith bad? Heck no.

Men in power and some Qazi’s are usually rigid when it comes to punishing others. They do not see the essence of Sharia; Justice. If the Sharia laws are turned over to Regular attorneys and let there be arguments and discussions, it will serve justice. There is no stoning to death in Qur’aan... There is no triple Talaq in Qur’aan as it is practiced; the men have allowed it to happen in three to four nations out of 56 Muslim majority nations.

We all, Muslims or not, have a stake in creating just societies and we need to speak up and thank God, in democracies we can do that. Unfortunately the kings and dictators care less about religion and more about saving their tail...

As an example of shared stakes in the world, take a look at the comment in face book from a Jewish friend Paul Goldstein – “Since Sharia, to my understanding, is similar to Halacha in Judaism, it might be helpful to consider its application within secular democracies as is Halacha. To take the U.S. as an example, there exist Jewish religious courts within sizable Orthodox communities such as New York. These courts are purely voluntary for all concerned; rabbis and religious scholars are the "judges" who decide cases, and litigants can be represented by lawyers familiar with Jewish law. There is no way to enforce the religious court decisions through the regular civil courts; enforcement is only through respect of community mores, community pressure, and maintaining one's standing as an honorable member of the religious community.”

Sharia counseling in the US is indeed voluntary. The decisions are not legally binding, but morally binding. Those couples, who want to be religiously right, prefer religious guidance. It's almost like sitting with friends or going to marriage counselor. It's to maintain one's standing as an honorable member of the religious community.

If the Republican Right wingers can come out clean and say – no one has a bloody right to tell a woman or a man, what to wear, eat, worship, believe or think, and then we can look forward to a positive change. They are no different than the Bin Laden kind who believed in imposing his understanding of religion on others. Is the right wing Christians any different?

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Our first task is to communicate a comprehensive outline of knowledge to those who are attacking Sharia. The traditional Imam explanations give strength but are deficient in communicating with non-Muslims. Americans have to relate with each instance to understand it. God has blessed me and several other non-bearded, suit and jeans wearing Muslims in public, who can bridge that gap in communicating.

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We should expect every Muslim to know about his or her religion. The religion was completed and perfected while the prophet was alive. In his last speech he left the book for us, each Muslim to live by it. Prophet Muhammad did not assign any one, not one single person to interpret the religion for us. The Shia denomination of Muslims believes that Prophet had said to follow his progeny and we respect their belief, it works for them. We are accountable on the Day of Judgment and not even the Prophet will do favors. We had the time to be right and the only thing we have on that day is our deeds, the good things we have done to fellow beings and environment in preserving God’s creation.

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No Mufti, no Imam, no Khalifa is needed for Muslims. You are individually responsible for your actions. When we began life in the United States… each one learned the religion on his own like Prophet wanted us to. Talk to the people who have been here from the sixties. The clergy in every religion including Islam have made the religion dependent on them, it is their job security. Neither Jesus likes the clergy nor did Muhammad like it – if it becomes a profession. Clergy in every religion fall in the same proportions of good, ugly and greedy.

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Mother Teresa once said if you want to make peace, go talk with your enemies, you don’t make peace with friends and scholars. Hazrat Ali has also said something to that effect. A Chinese saying goes, if you want to eliminate your enemy, understand them and make friends, then you are free and they are free, if you fight head on, the battle continues. In light of these, I am pleased to carry the dialogue with my friends.

To be effective, we will have input from Imams, Scholars, Shari experts, non-Muslims, lay persons and others. We will encourage everyone to place his or her cards on the table so we can deal with the issue comprehensively.

I have been reaching out to ISNA, ICNA, CAIR and others, if they cannot do it, I am planning to pick the slack and just organize it. If you recall last year Qur’aan and the Prophet were attacked by Pastor Robert Jeffress, no Muslim Organization took it up. Thank God with the help of 10 Pastors, Rabbis, Pundits, Shamans, and elected Reps (Lon Burnam) who read the so called troubled verses from Qur’aan to the audience, while the 5 Muslims; Imam Zia Sheikh, Imam Shakoor, Dr. Basheer Ahmed, Ahmadi Muslim and myself either confirmed their understanding or corrected the misunderstanding. Today, those Pastors from Mormon, Baptist, Catholic, Unitarian, Presbyterian, Methodist…. will correct any misquotes from Qur’aan. All the details are at www.QuraanConference.com

We are all in this together and find solutions.
Mike Ghouse is committed to building cohesive societies. His work is indexed at www.MikeGhouse.net and his current articles at www.TheGhousediary.com

 

Muslim women and Gender issues in Mosques

At a school in Canada, the volunteers put a temporary barrier between high school boys and girls within the same cafeteria space for the Friday congregational Prayers. A Canadian Muslim organization is plugging the gender issue here to complicate the matters. You cannot tag that as a gender issue if you understood the culture of not only Muslims, but Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Zoroastrians. Full story at- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ghouse/muslim-women-and-gender-i_b_896904.html

Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker and a writer on Islam, Pluralism, interfaith and cohesive societies – All his work is indexed at www.mikeghouse.net

SHARIA LAWS, NOT IN AMERICA

The intent of the Sharia laws was to construct a complete justice system with fairness to all members of society. Peace and a sense of security are the products of justice in a given society. The violations of justice and the rule of law are found in every faith, culture and political system, to varying degrees. In this respect no community is free of blame and no one can cast the first stone against another community.

American Muslims have placed their trust in the American justice system and will continue to oppose Sharia laws as they are currently applied in many places across the globe. I will be one of the first ones, if not the first one, to stand up against it. The Muslim majority in America is happy with the American system and does not want to have Sharia law here in America.

Continued - http://www.opednews.com/articles/Sharia-not-in-America-by-Mike-Ghouse-110622-556.html

Mike Ghouse is committed to building a cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day. He is a speaker, thinker, writer and a frequent guest on Hannity show and nationally syndicated Radio shows and Dallas TV, Radio and Print Media. Over 1000 articles have been published on Pluralism, Interfaith, Islam, India and cohesive societies. Two of his books are poised to be released this fall on Pluralism and Islam. He is available to speak at your place of worship, work, school, college, seminars or conferences. His work is encapsulated in 27 blogs, four websites and several forums indexed at http://www.mikeghouse.net/.