The Niqabi Paralegal

Left out in the cold

One of the groups most hard-hit by the welfare reform bill signed in 1996 by then-president Clinton is immigrants. The welfare reform bill not only tightened restrictions for all persons eligible for public benefits, it barred many otherwise eligible immigrants from receiving benefits at all. Additionally, the rules of eligibility for immigrants are so confusing that many families who are still entitled to receive benefits have not applied for them. And one of the hardest hit groups of all has been children.

Islamic Non-Violence

This week, our thoughts turn back again to the horrors of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Those who committed the atrocity attempted to put the name of Islam to their acts. And since that time we see so much other violence in the news - in Palestine, Chechnya, Indonesia, and elsewhere - again with the name of Islam being put to it.

Yet at the same time that some Muslims are seeking to pervert their religion, others are seeking to reclaim it. They are looking in the Islamic texts and traditions to find resources for a new movement of non-violence. They are rediscovering great spiritual leaders of the past such as Bacha Khan, the "Muslim Gandhi." And they are trying to spread the word among Muslims and gain support even in troubled Palestine.

Theological background - The most comprehensive online resource about a scriptural and moral basis for non-violence in Islam is the e-book Islam and Non-Violence. I provide an overview of the book here. Islam clearly does permit a military jihad but it sets strict conditions on it. Islamic non-violence advocates believe that no war today can meet the conditions set by Islam and therefore, Muslims must refrain from war.

A closer study of the textual and historical sources is provided at Non-Violence and Islam while Non-Violence in Islamic Teachings gives a Shi'ite perspective and A Muslim Ideal of Non-Violence a non-traditional perspective. The other links show that there is support for non-violence within the traditional view as well.

The real problem for Muslim non-violence advocates is not a lack of Islamic principles and examples to draw on, but rather a problem in implementing these principles, which is explained well in Values of Peace-building and Non-violence in Islam: Ideals and Reality.

Historical examples - Despite these difficulties in implementation, Islamic non-violence movements have been a reality, not just a dream. The largest was that of Bacha Khan, known as the "Muslim Gandhi." In 1929, he began a movement called Khudai Khidmatgar (servants of God), which eventually grew to 100,000 people. Despite facing brutal repression by the British rulers of India, Khudai Khidmatgar remained committed to non-violence. Khan worked with Gandhi towards Hindu-Muslim unity, a ideal which unfortunately was not realized. A Pacifist Uncovered provides a good overview of Khan's life and his movement, while Bacha Khan in Afghanistan provides historical background as well as information about the lesser-known phases of Khan's life. It is unfortunate that Khan's name is not mentioned along with Gandhi's.

Palestine - Sometimes, one gets the impression from the news that all the Palestinian people are dedicated to the destruction of Israel or at least to the way of violence and terrorism. But if you look beyond the headlines, you will discover a more complex, and more hopeful, reality.

Since 1985, Mubarak Awad has been working to build a Palestinian non-violence movement. He has been joined in this call by Michael S. Ladah, Bassem Eid of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, and Jonthan Kuttab, among others.

Support may be growing among Palestinians, according to Eli Kintisch and The Jerusalem Times (a Palestinian newspaper). More and more ordinary Palestinians are beginning to agree that suicide bombings and terrorist tactics only bring more oppression and violence on their people, rather than bringing them closer to freedom. They are beginning to feel that non-violence is a tactic that will work for them.

The INS's record of failure

The first step in achieving homeland security must be to address and fix problems with our existing agencies and systems. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (now part of the Department of Homeland Security) has already come under fire, and rightly so, for issuing student visas to two of the 9/11 hijackers - seven months after the terrorist attacks. But the INS's problems go far beyond that. In 1996 and 1997, the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Justice issued reports documenting systematic failures by the INS to complete its responsibilities in enforcing immigration law. Yet the INS had not taken any significant action to implement the OIG's recommendations by September 11, 2001. Worse yet, follow-up reports by the OIG in 2002 and 2003 show that the INS has still not improved substantially.

Target: Immigrants

In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the government decided to focus much of its counter-terrorism effort on immigrants, specifically on temporary visitors (workers, students, and the like) from certain Middle Eastern and Muslim countries. The three major ways the government has carried this out are the September 11 detentions, special registration, and community interviews. Two years later, where has this gotten us?

The Secret Court

Samih Jammal may not be the most upstanding of citizens. He's been charged with running a scam to steal and resell baby formula. Prosecutors allege that he's a flight risk because he had already planned to leave the U.S. to evade the IRS. But is Jammal a threat to national security? That isn't clear yet; prosecutors have not brought any charges of terrorist involvement against him. But according to news reports, Jammal was wiretapped under the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Trapped

People sometimes ask victims of domestic violence, "Why don't you leave?" It isn't that simple, of course. Women in abusive marriages may fear for their safety and that of their children, and will have to worry about finding a home and a job to support themselves. For immigrant women, the situation is even worse. In addition to all of the other concerns, they may face deportation if they leave the marriage.