CURRENT DIALOGUE Issue 43, July 2004 |
In the name of Allah, the most compassionate, the dispenser of grace Jumu’ah Khutbah/Friday congregational sermon A belated Muslim response to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur Imam A. Rashied Omar We are indeed living in stressful times. Never before in our contemporary history have faith and commitment of Muslims for a more peaceful, just and humane world been more tested as it is has been during recent times. Besides the many human tragedies that continue to plague our world, like the ongoing violence in Iraq and the Occupied Territories of Gaza and the West Bank, we have been made aware for months now that the predominantly Muslim population of the Darfur region of the Western Sudan is facing a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. 1 According to Human Rights Watch, it is estimated that up to 30,000 people have been killed and over 1 million people have been displaced from their homes at the hands of marauding gangs of militiamen calling themselves the "Janjawid." 2 Based on numerous eyewitness accounts, Amnesty International reports that "men have been killed inside mosques, women raped in front of their husbands and old women killed when their homes have been set alight - all acts designed to humiliate and destroy the fabric of community life, over and beyond the individual atrocity". 3 The Islamic Center of Southern California in a press release claims that during the course of the violence and destruction in Darfur over forty mosques have been destroyed and countless Qur’ans desecrated.4 I have been able to independently verify this claim in a personal interview with a member of our masjid congregation who is from Darfur. He told me that the central masjid in the historic village of Tina, where his grandfather had been the Imam for over 30 years, has completely vanished from the earth along with the village and all of its inhabitants. This was the result of one of the bombing campaigns executed by the Sudanese air force. 5 It is crystal clear now that the situation in Darfur, Sudan has reached horrific proportions and Muslims can no longer deny or turn a blind eye to this ongoing human suffering. “Din/Religion is providing good counsel and advice/Nasiha”. It is fitting to begin by placing my advice/nasiha within the broad theological and jurisprudential framework of Islam. First and foremost, the Glorious Qur’an in Surah-al-Hujarat, Chapter 49, Verse 10 enjoins us to make peace and reconciliation/sulh between two conflicting parties.
“The Believers are but a single Brotherhood/Sisterhood: It is instructive to note that the Qur’anic exhortation to promote peace and reconciliation in the above verse is in the imperative form. This gives the injunction a greater sense of urgency. Second, in his famous farewell sermon at 'Arafat on his final pilgrimage/al-khutbat-al-wida’, just before his death, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) summed up the essence of the social message of the Islam as anti-racism when he proclaimed: "All human beings are descendent from the prototype Adam, and Adam has been created from the earth. There is no superiority for an Arab over a non-Arab, nor for a non-Arab over an Arab. Neither is there superiority for a white person over a black person, nor for a black person over a white person, except the superiority gained through God-consciousness/taqwa. Indeed the noblest of you in the sight of God is the one with the most righteous conduct/taqwa." This famous prophetic tradition/hadith is further reinforced by a verse in the Glorious Qur’an in Surah al-Rum, Chapter 30, Verse 22 in which differences in languages and pigmentations of skin among human beings are described as signs of the existence of God, which need to be celebrated.
“And of the Signs of Allah, is the creation of the heavens and the earth and in the variations of your languages and skin colors” Third, Islam has made the alleviation of human suffering through acts of charity/zakat, one of the five pillars/arkan al-Islam on which it is built. This is established on a prophetic tradition/hadith reported on the authority of Ibn ‘Umar, the son of Umar bin al-Khattab, May Allah be pleased with both, who said: I heard the messenger of Allah say: The categories of zakat recipients have been clearly outlined by Allah, the Sublime, in Chapter 9, verse 60, of the Glorious Qur’an as follows; Fourth, the Islamic concept of peace does not merely aspire for a cessation of war, known in the literature as negative peace. The Islamic concept of peace is a positive one that seeks to build long-year sustainable relationships and reconciliation based on justice known in the Qur’an as ‘adl and qist. This is clearly enunciated in the following verse from the Glorious Qur’an: How then can we operationalize these guiding Islamic principles? Using the Islamic principles outlined above as their beacon, I would like to propose four strategies that may be useful in helping Muslims respond to the current crisis in the Darfur. First, as Muslims and members of the larger human family, we should add our voices to the calls on the Sudanese Government to establish an immediate cessation of hostilities by; (a) disarming and disbanding the Janjawid militia operating in Darfur; (b) ensuring full access for humanitarian efforts to assist and repatriate the displaced people of Darfur and (c) ensuring full access for international human rights monitors. In this regard it is encouraging to note that the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) in a press statement has called on the Sudanese president, Omar el-Bashir “to ensure the safety and security of all of citizens”.7 I hasten to add that it is my considered view that the humanitarian operation in Darfur should be done under the official auspices of the United Nations and led by the African Union. It would be strategically unwise and wholly unhelpful for any United Nations resolutions including any humanitarian operation in Darfur to be led the United States or Great Britain. 8
Second, we should raise funds to support the Darfur relief efforts. This is a critical juncture in which Muslims should arise to their Islamic responsibility and fulfill the third and most neglected pillar of Islam by discharging their zakat/charities generously. In this regard I have been encouraged by the efforts of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago who has established a special Darfur Relief Fund* for pooling tax-deductible, charitable donations in support of these refugees.9 I urge you to support this and other similar efforts generously.10
Third, in light of the recent claim by Human Rights Watch that it has obtained official Sudanese government documents that "illustrate the involvement, at the highest levels, of the state bureaucracy in the recruitment and arming of militia and the authorization of their activities that have resulted in crimes against humanity and war crimes", we should call for the United Nations to establish a high-level Darfur investigative tribunal to look into these allegations. If sufficient evidence exist the Sudanese government officials and the Janjawid militia as well as members of the opposition who are guilty of human atrocities should be prosecuted for war crimes in the international criminal court. The Sudanese government supported by the international community should also be persuaded to provide restitution to the victims and survivors of the Darfur carnage. 11 Last but not least, while it would be simplistic to attribute the carnage in Darfur purely to motives of racism as has been implied in much of the media reporting of Arabs against Africans, we need to acknowledge that Northern Sudanese, who ironically themselves have African roots often display paternalistic attitudes towards their fellow compatriots residing in the Southern and Western Sudan. It is well known that the northern Sudanese have all sorts of disparaging Arabic names for their compatriots in the West. They are often called Qaba’il Zurqa, meaning the black tribes. This is again is ironic since the Arabic word Sudan itself historically refers to the lands inhabited by black skinned people. To acknowledge that Muslims are sometimes racist is never easy. Most of us can easily recognize racism in others, but deny that it exists within our ranks. We need to purify and heal our souls and rid our communities from the scourge of racism through a vigorous education campaign. But the first stage of purification of our souls (tazkiyat-un-nafs) and reform of our community/islah al- ummah is acknowledgement. Du’a/Prayer for the People of Darfur, Sudan A. RASHIED OMAR is an Imam from Cape Town, South Africa and currently serves as Coordinator of the Kroc Institute’s Project on Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding at the University of Notre Dame. ENDNOTES |