HOT LEAK
Radical Imams Pressure UWS for control over teaching Islam and Gender
As the scandal over the so-called Queensland "Professors of Terror" radiates increasingly sinister hues, Culture Warrior Watch has been sent a copy of a memo being circulated by the Australian National Imams Council.
On the same day, The Australian published the troubling photos of Saudi women covered top to toe - including the entire face - studying at Griffith University, 94 Men who comprise The Australian National Imams Council unveiled an astonishing secret campaign to control University of Western Sydney's course 'Women in Arabic and Islamic Literature’.
Here is the memo in full:
Australian National Imams Council
PO Box 145
Lakemba.NSW.2195
www.anic.org.au
info@anic.org.au
24.04.2008
Women In Arabic And Islamic Literature Subject
National Centre of Excellence in Islamic Studies
The Australian National Imams Council is a body that represents the Muslim Imams of Australia and through them the community of Muslims in Australia. Currently there are 94 Imams in the Council and they are drawn from all the States and Territories of Australia. We are responsible for a variety of matters including the Appointment of the Mufti of Australia and the issuance of legal rulings for the benefit of Muslim Australians.
The University of Western Sydney is a University of good repute amongst the mainstream and Muslim community, and therefore we would like to place on the record our deep concern with regards to a course taught at the University under the course name ‘Women in Arabic and Islamic Literature’.
The course structure and content has involved repeated and unjustified attacks upon Islam by the lecturer and a course reader that is seriously flawed. The reader promotes a very negative view of Islam and especially women in Islam. It does not represent normative, traditional Islam as practised by the overwhelming majority of the Muslim Population in the world today and through fourteen centuries of Islamic history.
We are concerned that the course does not provide a balanced view of Islam and that students will emerge with a very skewed understanding of the faith. The course is so biased that it does not draw upon the work of renowned academics whose writings would give the course a more moderate slant. Such an omission is not only serious but quite telling. It tells of the fact that this course was not constructed and is taught in a very negative manner with prejudices which are very obvious.
Even when there is a reference to a traditional source (and there is only one reference and that is to Bukhari) that source is taken out of context and not given explanation from the traditional sources on which there is an abundance written and recorded.
The two major sources for Islam are the Quran (Divine revelation) and Hadith (sayings of the Prophet) neither of these will convey their complete meaning if they are taken out of context or taken literally without appropriate explanation. And that is exactly what was done with the reference to Bukhari and the Hadith contained therein.
The subject’s emphasis on sexuality and it’s explicit sexual content is not reflective of normative Islam which is what we thought the National Centre of Excellence in Islamic Studies would attempt to portray.
We would appreciate a reassessment of this course, its content and the manner in which it is taught so that it more accurately reflects the actual and not imagined teachings of Islam. And to truly reflect the normative teachings of Islam which is best placed under the Centre of excellence in Islamic studies.
Yours Sincerely,
Shaykh Moez Nafti
President of ANIC
________________________________________________________________________
If you wish to petition the cause and make your concerns heard to the National Centre of Excellence of Islamic Studies and the University of Western Sydney, please show your support by Name: Contact (Mobile or email):
Organisation (if applicable).
Name
Contact Details (email or mobile) Organisation
Submission of Petition:
1. Fax completed form(s) to 1300 765 964 or
2. Email your name and organisation (if applicable) info@anic.org.au
Submission Deadline: Tuesday 29th April 5pm.
5 comments:
Cultural warror, is your real name Richard Kerbaj?
No it is not. I have no idea who Richard Kerbaj is. I have done the leg work and handed these stories to MSM organistaions too many times. So I thought I would start a blog. If you have any word of something that smells of an ideological/cultural cover up or con give me a call and I'll sniff it out.
I do not care if it is about left-wing, right-wing, liberal, anarchist, feminiist, transgender, universities, corpoartion, media....
We need to have culture warriors called to account no matter who they are.
G'day - I've had a quick look at the course description for the subject and it sounds inoffensive enough. I don't know Prof. Wright, so I can't comment on her teaching.
My concern as a Muslim feminist would be that non-Muslim feminists have not kept up with our work, and are stuck in second-wave secular and orientalist assessments of Islam that posit the religion is inherently misogynistic, a la Fatima Mernissi. Since then, many of us have criticised Western feminisms for asking us to give up our religion and culture for emancipation (something not asked of Western women).
So, the Imams seem to be saying - if I read between the lines - that the course is presented so as to emphasis notions about female sexualityt that skew normative Islamic teachings about women and gender relations or some such? If this is the case, I might join them in that concern, given what I have been exposed to in non-Muslim feminist assessments of my religion. It undermines the very important work that Muslim feminists (and supporter of Muslim feminists) are doing to improve the rights and autonomy of Muslim women in many different cultures (including Western ones).
I'd like to see the course content and reading. Are you able to get your hands on it?
Why is this such a hot leak? It's been on Muslim e-mail groups for weeks now.
And why would conservatives have a problem with imams rallying against a course promoting homosexuality? Surely, Cultural Warrior, your high priests like David Clarke MLC, the Jensens, George Pell and the Pope would happily sign this petition?
Maybe what the imams should do is make a special exemption. The course shouldn't teach any homosexuality apart from promotion of man-boy love. I'm sure the Pope would sign the petition then.
Anonymous
The leak came from me as you would note from the date I published this.
Secondly, I am not a "conservative." I am a radical secularist. If I saw the likes of Pell and Jensen trying to influence university courses in the same way as these so called "imams" I would respond accordingly. The major difference is that so would millions of other Australians.
I have studied literature and history courses that take no prisoners in their critique of Christianity. I expect the same of Islamic and Arabic literature.
There are more appropriate fora for you to express your fascination with gay sex. For example why don't you go to a gay sauna or beat and stop boring me with your tedious psychosexual hangups?
OK? Have a nice day now.
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