A North American Muslim Year-in-Review: 

Dr. Nyang and Shaykh Hamza Yusuf
on the Need for a New Muslim Publication 

Anas Coburn for Dar al Islam:  We're writing an annual publication which can, to some degree, give a view of the state of Islam in the United States. It cannot be comprehensive, and it will not be from everyone's point of view, but it will be a view of what was important in the last year and where we are now and what we need to do.

Dr. Sulayman Nyang:  Let me give you my ideas about this. One of the points which is developing in the United States with regard to social organization and self documentation of these non governmental organizations is to come up with these state-of-the-world or state-of-the-nation kind of reports. We don't have anything like that for the Muslims. If we are going to create a publication to address this need of the Muslims, then there are certain steps that must be taken to bring this about. First of all, you have to develop a categorization of things to be included in such a state-of-the-nation report for the Muslims. For example, you would like to know what the Muslim organizations are. What are these organizations, and what are the areas of responsibility they may be classified into: national organizations...what can you tell the people they are doing. You have their web-sites, you can monitor them, and at the end of the year come up with your own assessment of what they are doing.

You would like to know the relationship between the Muslims in the United States and the various institutions, for example there is certain legislation passed by the congress...for example, how does the legislation around health policy affect the Muslims, how does legislation on schools affect Muslims. People will be coming to you to find out how Muslims are responding to American society because you are the one who is spending time monitoring what they are doing. If you have a national state-of-the Muslim-in-America, you will have to develop the data for people who are interested in the Muslim response to legislation. Labor Unions for example, they are all interested in legislation dealing with labor, hospitals are interested in legislation dealing with them...thats why they have lobbies.

I talk about the twelve tribes of Washington, and monitoring those tribes. And the Muslims must have mawalis in these tribes. Muslims have to really be present in those. If you are going to have a report like that, you will have a category like the political situation of Muslims in America. If you monitor, you will know what the President has said about Muslims during the course of the year, if he has attended any events, you can document it. In five to ten pages, you can summarize what happened, so people will know that there is a place to get this. Right now, there is no such place.  It would take someone a long time to document this using the internet after the fact. But if you have someone doing it on an ongoing basis, it will be easy, just cut and paste. You get the report from the Washington Post, read it and make a short digest, including a short footnote. Use the formats already developed.  You document the twelve tribes, from the President right on down to the shoeshine boys. You may inspire some Muslims even to write their dissertation on what you are doing. They can begin to write about the prominent Senators based on what is in your book. Someone living in Massachusetts could write a book on Kennedy and the Muslims based on what you have gathered. Recently John Dean, the Chairman of the Democratic Party met with Muslims here. It was in the newspapers. A report of the meeting would be in such a book as yours. This is a new thing for the Muslims ... a Muslim Year-in-Review.

Anas:  For all kinds of reasons, we'll start something and iterate it until someone takes it on and does it really thoroughly.

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf:  Why? Why don't you be the person who does it really well?

Dr. Nyang:  You can do it.

Anas:  Because of a limited number of hours per week.

Dr. Nyang:  You get other people to work with you. If you do it well, all kinds of people will want it, buy it.

Shaykh Hamza:  There are so many people on the Internet that will monitor stuff for you.

Dr. Nyang:  CAIR is already probably doing some of this. They may have a hundred stories, but you are only interested in ten of them for the report.

Anas:  It seems to me that one must be careful about trying to present something comprehensive.

Dr. Nyang:  Don't call it comprehensive. The point is to create something that will be so attractive that many people will have vested interest in it, and this will create room for growth. So if you talk about the political tribe in Washington, you also have the Military.

Shaykh Hamza:  For instance, you have Robert Spencer, who wrote the Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam.   He is very anti-Islamic. He was the keynote speaker at the Marine's two-hundredth and whatever anniversary, which is significant because his entire reason for existence is to bash Muslims.

Anas:  It would be great if I could have a piece on the extent to which being anti-Islamic makes your career. There are several people out there making a career of being anti-Islamic, including Muslims.

Shaykh Hamza:  But you know, we don't have anyone monitoring all these people. I've been asking for this for a long time. We need an Anti-Defamation League. There are Jewish organizations which monitor any anti-Semitic remarks. They keep files, and when they need to activate them, boom...something goes to all the major media.

Anas:  Isn't that part of what CAIR does?

Shaykh Hamza:  No.

Dr. Nyang:  CAIR does two things: when Muslim civil liberties are violated, they step in. They have been successful for example you have Muslimah wearing scarves as stewardesses.  But what we have to take into account is that when we talk about Muslims and the Military, we should have a report on this guy: we should tell the Muslims about him.

Anas:  Robert Spencer.

Shaykh Hamza:  His book is a best-seller.

Anas:  There are some Muslims who are fascinated by the stuff that is written against us, and others who ignore it.

Dr. Nyang:  They are playing the ostrich role.

Shaykh Hamza:  I'm not fascinated by it, but I am troubled by it. It has an impact.

Anas:  Would you include people like Ibn Warraq?

Dr. Nyang:  Yes.

Shaykh Hamza:  Absolutely. Have you read his latest book, Leaving Islam? It is all apostate stories, with titles like "The Wind through my hair" -- You know, a woman who had left the hijab.

Shaykh Hamza:  You can talk about new-anti-Muslims on the scene.

Dr. Nyang:  One is the political group. Muslims in the Military. Or Muslims and the Military. Like the rape of Abir Hamza, following through with that story.

Dr. Nyang:  You just summarize and identify sources for people who want to do further reading.  You can have Muslims and Labor. The Catholics have an annual report where they Catholics and the Labor process. CAIR reports on civil liberties cases. Karama reports on Muslim women. Muslims and the Academy....Daniel Pipes and all these other people. How Muslims are being dealt with in the Academy.

Shaykh Hamza:  Khalid Blankinship.

Dr. Nyang:  The Academy and the American Muslims. You can go both ways. Cut and paste from the annual report of the Middle East Studies association. Identify those people who write about Muslims, cut and paste. Muslims and the Press. How the press view the Muslims.

Shaykh Hamza:  How many articles on Islam in the major newspapers.

Dr. Nyang:  The Bell and Howell index. I have it at the university. Very useful over the years. They'd save you a lot of trouble. Then identify which journalists are more favorable.

Shaykh Hamza:  It would be such a help just to be able to look up who a particular journalist is so if someone calls me to do an interview I can find out something about who they are.

Dr. Nyang:  This is path-breaking. There are graduate students who will help.

Anas:  There is an Encyclopedia of Islam in America coming out.

Dr. Nyang:  All these people will come out in your index. All this would be in the Muslims and the Academy index.

Anas:  What would be good would be if there was some way to get at all those students out there studying Islam and we could get them to help with this.

Shaykh Hamza:  That's what I am telling you. It is just a matter of putting out a feeler and getting people who would commit to it. I have people who would help you, because it is useful for us. I'd like to see it because it is useful for us.

Dr. Nyang:  Some of our grad students would do it.

Shaykh Hamza:  We don't even know who we are. I just went to APMA, American Pakistani Muslim Association annual dinner. I gave the keynote address for the King Edward Alumni Dinner, which is just one section. It was a filled ballroom with some of the most influential Pakistanis in the United States. There are 2,500 active members. There are 10,000 Pakistani physicians in this country who donate heavily to politcal parties. I was amazed at this organization. I'd heard about it, but when I actually saw...at the dinner the House Minority Whip, Derman (from Ill) gave the keynote address. There's some juice there, he would be doing that otherwise. Then they had Sheila Lee Jackson, who flew all the way from Houston to be there, and her aide is a Pakistani American. They had one of the most powerful democratic Senators from Michigan...anyway, you know what Sheila Jackson said to them? "There is power in this room." It was true. I told them $1,000 per month from all your active members, and you'll have an endowment of $30 million in one year! That's a serious endowment. You could create a legal fund with top-level lawyers working on Muslim causes full-time in a year.

Anas:  Is that a top priority for you?

Dr. Nyang:  Yes.

Shaykh Hamza:  It is a top priority. I think there should be some kind of insurance, where all the Muslim organizations pay something every month for legal insurance, then when they need it is there. We get eaten up with legal costs. We've spent $17,000 this year I think on legal counsel. I'd much rather put the money into an insurance fund. Insurance is a way corporate power creates massive funds.

Anas:  And this year I've been noticing more prominence from Muslim lawyers. That could be another category. Muslims and the Law.

Shaykh Hamza:  Muslims and Civil Liberties.  Muslims and Film. Have you ever seen that program about an FBI agent who is an undercover Muslim terrorist guy I happened to see in a hotel. It was about some American convert who had become an al-Qaeda member. I was horrified. He looked like half the guys at Zaytuna. It was just bad. We need to be monitoring this stuff. Muslims and film and television....Muslim characters are popping up on sitcoms. So much has come into this culture in such a short time. Our young people are showing up all over. Look at a film and see all the Muslim names in the credits. Not all are practicing Muslims.

Dr. Nyang:  Another thing is the state of Muslim activism in the interfaith.

Shaykh Hamza:  Evo Patel. He has created what he calls the faith line. He says the real civil rights challenge of our era is breaking the "faith line" as opposed to the color line. He's telegenic, smart. Virginia Grey Henry.

Dr. Nyang:  The conference she organized with the Dalai Lama. It was a major event.

Shaykh Hamza:  We had major news coverage on that. And the director who made Pretty Women did the documentary which will be released. He's a major Hollywood director. He's one of the Dalai Lama's people. Mariel Hemingway was there. Tony Robbins was there. We met privately with the Dalai Lama in the morning. The Muslim community met with the Dalai Lama. And then in the evening Huston Smith got up and declared his Islam. He said, "I'm a Muslim if you want to attack Islam. I pray five times a day." He said, "This is a great religion, they say 'As-Salaamu Alaykum, peace be upon you,' as a greeting. That's a lot better than, 'Hi, how ya doin?'" The Dalai Lama said, "I am a defender of Islam."

Dr. Nyang:  American Muslims and interfaith work. There's a lot of interfaith activity but we have no clearing house. Another category is American Think Tanks and the Muslims.

Shaykh Hamza:  And monitoring the journals: like Foreign Affairs, almost every issue has something on Islam, Public Interest, The Wilsonian Quarterly, the Tikkun, the Soujourner (the Christian Tikkun). That's what I wanted Seasons to be.  Islamic Publishing, books that have been published that are worth reading. One of the most important books in Islamic History, ad-Daria, Rabb al Isbahani, that made al-Ghazali, translated by Ya Sin Mohammad, in South Africa, published by Ishtak, Naquib al Attas house. People should know, its been translated into English. And books come out in English we don't know about.

Dr. Nyang:  It is a way of creating a credible network for Muslims so they know about each other.

Shaykh Hamza:  There are many Muslim organizations we don't know about it.

Dr. Nyang:  After the publication becomes known, organizations will be sending things to you. We don't even have a Reader's Digest.

Shaykh Hamza:  That's a brilliant idea.

Dr. Nyang:  Someone whose job is to collect articles, Muslims will buy it because you can get fifteen to twenty articles. Fascinating stories about people who have experienced something in the United States.

Shaykh Hamza:  Muslim airport stories.

Dr. Nyang:  Two more things: Make sure you have the state of Muslim Publications with someone looking at what they are doing. Muslim Media and the American Muslims, because their stories may not be visible in the larger media. The last thing is American Muslims and Foreign Policy...like Abu Graib and all these things.