BBC NEWS | The Reporters | Mark Mardell

 

This is my first visit to Albania and it is a fascinating, beautiful country: Tirana much more impressive than I had been led to believe; the run-down Durres tower blocks and shanties more in keeping with my preconceptions.

I am here to report on Albania’s reaction to the looming independence of Kosovo and my report will be on Radio Four and the World Service next week and I will link to it when it is ready.

But that is for another day.

Today, religion.

On the way up into the town of Kruja, perched on the side of a mountain, we stop at a small road side shrine, a Teke, a green-domed, white walled, small building.

Down a few stone steps is a neat little room, covered with small, Turkish-style rugs. But a little area of the floor is bare, and what looks like limestone.

There’s a hole, about eight inches deep and it doesn’t take much imagination to see it as a footprint.

The shrine’s guardian, 79 year-old Masmut Subashi, tells me this is the footprint of Sari Saltik .

Holy man

The holy man’s portrait hangs on one wall, robed, with long dark hair, his hands apparently resting on the hilt of a sword. Masmut tells me how he was taken to the shrine by his father as a small boy and now he tends to it. Then he tells me the story of the saint.

A nearby village was terrorised by a monster who demanded a human life every day. Sari Saltik cut off the monster’s seven heads and for 25 years lived in the large cave which the beast had inhabited.

When he left, he first stepped on this mountainside. His next foot print was a hundred miles away and his next in Crete .

He tells us that the legend is that Sari Saltik had a brother who was a Christian, St Anthony, who had his own cave not far from here.

Please don’t hold me to the highest standards of BBC accuracy on this one.

A Muslim saint, a Muslim portrait, acknowledging a Christian brother?

Well, yes, Albania is the headquarters of the Bektashi, a Sufi group.

Sunni Muslim

Muslims are said to make up 70% of the population in Albania, and most of them are not Bektashi, who are Shia, but Sunni.

It’s mildly curious to me that while some people argue Turkey shouldn’t join the European Union because most of its population is Muslim, I have never heard the same argument applied to Kosovo or Albania.

Perhaps it’s because they are so small. Perhaps it’s because, for many, the religion is only nominal. As I write this, in Albania’s capital Tirana , I can hear the call to prayer but the approach to religion seems much more European than the more profound attachments one may find in other parts of the world.

I hasten to add I am not just talking about Islam and the Middle East: America’s devoutness seems very shocking to many worldly Europeans.

Anyway while some websites warn that Albania could be a base for “extremism ” or “fundamentalists” there seems little sign of even moderate conservatism or devotion on the streets or indeed in the villages.

Not a headscarf in sight, let alone a hijab or burkha. Is there a European Islam that is as different from Wahhabism as the Church of England is from Baptists of the Bible Belt?

Is it to be found in these lands?

Rock-and-roll poet

Ervin Hatibi is a poet and intellectual, a Sunni Muslim, who became serious about his religion after living a rather rock-and-roll lifestyle.

While some, like the historian Bernard Lewis, argue that secularism is a specifically Christian phenomenon, Ervin says Islam has its own secularism and should not be seen as a monolithic whole.

“Everywhere Islam is different,” he says.

“As an everyday experience in the Balkans, for centuries it has created unique features. I consider Islam as part of the European landscape. It was for centuries. It kept changing, especially in Europe, the continent of continuous change.

“As a believer I may have fantasies about a society that moves towards certain values, and so will an Albanian Orthodox, or an atheist from a Muslim background or one of the new Protestant Christians, but we all have to live within an Albanian space.

“We have to live in harmony with the will of the majority and this is our culture, a more and more European and Western culture. It has something special that is not only Islam, but Ottoman and from the communist regime, so we have our special flavour that gives more beauty to the European experience and is not something dangerous.”

Is he right ? Could the much derided Ottoman Empire ,multi-ethnic and relatively religiously tolerant, have got something right in the Balkans?

BBC NEWS | The Reporters | Mark Mardell

American Chronicle | Does Islam teach a believer (a Muslim), to hate Christians?

By Mark Harding

Islamic teaching requires one to believe in Allah and his prophet Muhammad. But doing this requires the believer to do good which means that it is the works of the believer by his own actions that allows or disallows him or her to heaven.
It is not my intension to preach in this article, nor do I try to convince one through scripture that one is wrong and the other is right. My intention is only to compare and allow the reader an opportunity to see the differences so that one can find the reason, if any, for why Islam might teach to hate Christians.
In Luke 23: 39 to 43 tells of two men who were criminals being crucified beside Jesus. One said to Jesus “LORD, remember me when you come into your kingdom”. And did Jesus say to him “NO you have not done enough works”?. Or did Jesus assure this man that he would be with Him in Paradise Today? Therefore Christians believe that it is not by works that one can enter paradise but by faith in Jesus Christ.
What is then the good works that are taught from the Islamic teachings that allow a Muslim to be good enough to get to heaven?
Of course we find Islamic teachings that on the surface, seem to be a legitimate course of action to this challenge. For example,
Sura 21: 94 Then whoso doeth some good works and is a believer, there will be no rejection of his effort. Lo! We record (it) for him.
Sura 22:50 Those who believe and do good works, for them is pardon and a rich provision
So then what are these good works that Allah wants Muslims to do?
Sura 2:216 Warfare is ordained for you, though it is hateful unto you; but it may happen that ye hate a thing, which is good for you, and it may happen that ye love a thing, which is bad for you. Allah knoweth, ye know not.
Sura 4:76 Those who believe fight in the cause of Allah, and those who reject Faith Fight in the cause of Evil
So then who are those that believe in the Quran, Allah of Islam and its messenger Muhammad and who are those that reject?
According to the Quran the believers are those who:
Believers
Sura 2:136 Say (O Muslims): We believe in Allah and that which is revealed unto us and that which was revealed unto Abraham, and Ishmael, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the tribes, and that which Moses and Jesus received, and that which the prophets received from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and unto Him we have surrendered.
I have been exhorting Muslims for many years now here in Canada to help them see the difference from what the Holy Bible teaches compared to that of the Quran. The biggest challenge is the Muslims belief that their god, ‘Allah’ in the Quran, is the same one found in the Holy Bible, the God of Israel.
Sura 2:136 is often used to promote this idea. The fact is nothing can be further from the truth. For in almost every situation found in the Quran, whether it is Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Noah or even Jesus, there are very little similarities if any at all.
One of the questions I would ask the many thousands of Muslims I have questioned over the 20 years when speaking to them about their faith, has been about the severe persecution of Christians in every Islamic society. The answer that I would receive was generally the same and that was that the media was lying, there is no persecution at all in any Islamic society. They would never acknowledge the persecution of Christians in their home countries or comment on all the media reports regarding the same in any other Islamic society. Here is the reason that they must deny this terrible slaughter-taking place in every Islamic society today, which incidentally is more severe, more brutal today than it ever has ever been.
Sura 2:62 Lo! Those who believe (in that which is revealed unto thee, Muhammad), and those who are Jews, and Christians, and Sabaeans - whoever believeth in Allah and the Last Day and doeth right - surely their reward is with their Lord, and there shall no fear come upon them neither shall they grieve.
This verse, and Sura 2:136, are used by Muslims to prove what Allah has to say about Christians and the fact that their god is our God. According to what they have to say there is never any persecution of Christians in Islamic societies and, they say, Muslims and Christians live in peace in their homelands like Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia, Somalia Sudan Turkey ect…
Of course the problem with Sura 2:136 has already been discussed, but one of the greater difficulties is that no Christian can ever believe in “Allah or the last day” thus making Sura 2:62 of no use to any Christian or Jew living in an Islamic society. This is a huge problem for many Christians living in an Islamic society who openly deny Allah, Muhammad or the Quran. Yet this is what they must do according to their religious convictions, for if the Quran preaches a lie and deception, according to what the Holy Bible dictates, it must not only be acknowledged by Christians, ALL Christians, but Islam must as well be openly discredited publicly. For God, the true God of Israel is a jealous God and is not willing to share His kingdom with Allah the god of Islam, and out of love for all Muslims, Christians must start to feel the need to encourage them to accept this truth and not the lies of Muhammad.

Un-Believers
Sura 84:20, 21, 22. What then is the matter with them that they believe not?
And when the Qur'an is read to them, they fall not prostrate,
But on the contrary the Unbelievers reject (it).
Sura 058:055 Those who resist Allah and His Messenger will be humbled to dust, as were those before them: for We have already sent down Clear Signs. And the Unbelievers (will have) a humiliating Penalty,-
Of course many living in these democratic societies like Canada, have a difficult time understanding the logic of killing someone because of their religious convictions, however that is what Islam teaches. Islam teaches a believer that they must kill those who will not believe in Allah or his prophet Muhammad until they are subdued into submission and pay a protection tax called a Jizyah tax. In other words, they mustl fight all non Muslims until all is Islam. Even the People of the book, which is Christians and Jews, must be subjected to persecution until they all are willing to admit that the god “Allah” is greater than the God of Israel which is the one we worship. And with willing submission we must pay the Jizyah tax to prove we have been subdued. This law is part of the Shaira Law which although may not be practiced yet in many Islamic societies, will be implemented to its fullest when there is an Islamic state and all the world is Islamic.
Sura 9:29 Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Messenger have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.
This goal of taking over the world and making it all Islamic is still in the works today.
In the course of the last 20 years, which I have been learning about Islam, I have found out what it is like for those living in an Islamic society who disagree with Islamic teachings, like the one, which says that the god of Islam is the God of Israel. For my opinion and my religious convictions have resulted in Muslims hating me so much that they would spit on me, curse me by swearing vulgarities at me on the streets of Toronto and threaten me with such graphic and horrific statements of torture, I dare not mention them. We have all seen the carnage around the world by Muslims, because of a simple cartoon depicting Muhammad as a terrorist, which most Un believers who have studied Islam’s history believe to be very true.
Many moderate Muslims have been desperately trying to separate themselves from those who use the teachings in the Quran to further their goals of an Islamic state. But the separation that these moderate Muslims seek can never take place, because the Islamic teachings do not allow for any type of peace through democracy. For in democracy there is freedom of religion, in Islam there is no such law. In democracy there is freedom of religious choice, in Islam there is freedom of religious choice only providing you except the punishment of paying a tax for your choice of being Non Muslim. Homosexuality is outlawed and punishment includes 100 lashes or death. Women have very few rights in Islam and according to the teachings of the Quran, women risk being beaten by their husbands if they will not obey them.
I do not hate Muslims, yet in Canada there was such an outcry by Muslims who are against me for being public with my convictions about Islamic teachings of hatred, they were successful at having me arrested. The courts in 1997 found me guilty of hating Muslims and I was convicted of this crime. But I have continued my work of exposing Islam, the results of which have been extraordinary, and I will bring these stories to you at a later date.
The answer than to my original question “Does Islam teach a believer (a Muslim), to hate Christians?” is YES .
Web sites to consider:
http://www.theirownwords.com/site/showvideo/52
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57521
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.aspx?GUID={8C1D2863-9FE5-43E9-BA8E-B21C2FFE5158}

American Chronicle | Does Islam teach a believer (a Muslim), to hate Christians?

How to Combat Radical Islamists

 

By Mehdi Mozaffari

Mr. Mozaffari is Professor of Political Science at University of Aarhus, Denmark.

Note: This article is intended to follow another by Mr. Mozaffari, which we published two weeks ago: "Is It Possible to Combat Radical Islamism Without Combating Islam?"

We need a cognitive approach to Islamism by conceiving it as a totalitarian ideology.
A clear and full internalization of the fact that Islamism is an ideology and not a religion will purify the whole question from a variety of difficulties. In many ways, Islamism is like an octopus. We have to aim directly at the head in stead of wasting our time and energy to deal with the complicated body. By evacuating religious contents from Islamism, we change our direction from theology to ideology, from religion to politics. In this way, we put forward the real face and real nature of Islamism. The Muslims, especially among the young people, who are potentially ready to give their lives for the sake of Islamist ideals, will find out that their struggle is not a part of a religious duty but purely an ideological and political one emanating from a dangerous utopia.

We also need an international tactical or ethical consensus. This is especially needed in the Western hemisphere. The reason for such a consensus is motivated by the fact that often some western political parties and leaders use anti-Islamic rhetoric for political purposes. This policy is not productive, and it can be dangerous.

Attacking Islam is precisely what Islamists are waiting for. They are insatiably trying to convince Muslims of two things: 1) Islamism is the true face of Islam, and 2) the West is an enemy of Islam. Therefore, politicians must choose their vocabulary more carefully by avoiding attacks on Islam as a religion and by avoiding hostile remarks about Muslims in general. Americans became aware of this necessity and consequently transformed their language in this field. They talk about "terrorists who hijacked a religion" and rarely comment on Islam or Muslims in a negative way. We have to remember that Islamists are still today using President Bush's famous "crusade" pronounced in September 2001 as an evidence for American hostility against Islam. It seems that to avoid attacking Islam and Muslims, indiscriminately, has become general U.S. policy. In this respect, the most recent evidence are the apologies which a top Pentagon intelligence official, Lt. General William Boykin, offers (October 17, 2003) to Muslims because of his negative comments on Islam. The Americans' prudence is re-affirmed in President Bush's speech in Indonesia (October 22, 2003). In an elaborated and well-balanced speech, the president repeated that "Americans hold a deep respect for the Islamic faith. We know that Islam is fully compatible with liberty and tolerance and progress because we see the proof in your country [Inodonesia]." Then, he states "Terrorists who claim Islam as their inspiration defile one of the great faiths. Murder has no place in any religious tradition". In this way, President Bush tried to reach two important goals: To make a clear distinction between "Islam" and "Islamism" and to demonstrate that Islamists have hijacked Islam itself.

During the past decades, repetitive experiences have showed that dialogue with Islamists leads nowhere. While in a democratic culture, dialogue is a MUST and a natural process, Islamists consider dialogue a clear sign of weakness; their own weakness if they accept a dialogue, and especially weakness in their opponents. Dialogue is an unknown word for Islamists. Nothing positive has come out of different dialogues of diplomacy with totalitarian regimes and groups in general, and nothing positive with Islamists either. The Chamberlain and Hitler agreement, the Roosevelt and Stalin dialogue, the European Union's "critical dialogue," the "constructive dialogue," the "Iran gate," the "dialogue" with Taliban and so on and so forth. None of these attempts at dialogue have been successful for the Western diplomacy.
If dialogue or compromise is impossible and ineffective, what to do then? The answer is short and brutal: pressure! Pressure can be gradual or accumulated; but it must be real and sufficiently strong and consistent for Islamists to feel it as such. If the pressure has no positive effect-- as it was the case with Taliban -- war should not be excluded as a last resort.
Therefore, we must constantly remember and learn from previous, related experiences to deal with other totalitarian regimes, groups and ideologies. They were defeated either by war or by heavy pressure. This goes for Nazism and Fascism. It also goes for the breakdown of the USSR. Based on criteria of success, it will be wise to forget any possible arrangement with Islamists and start using systematical force and pressure.

Finally, it is necessary and urgent to acknowledge what is predominately important is democratization of the world. If there is a clash, the clash is not between civilizations or between religions. The real clash occurs between democracy and despotism.
Democratization of the Muslim world stands as the key word to combat Islamism and with it to combat current global terrorism. It represents a huge and vast task. Let me emphasize only one aspect of this, which I think is the most important. The Islamic world is producing three main things: Oil, Terrorism and Emigration. Thus, we have an Islamic Bermuda Triangle which is threatening peace and security in the world. The best way to break down this Bermuda Triangle is of course to do it within the Muslim world and by Muslims themselves. Unfortunately, democratic forces inside the Muslim world have not been able to break this Triangle. Therefore, external support is essential. To support democratic forces inside the Muslim world is an inherent and necessary part of the anti-terrorism war. External support can take different forms: conditioning economic aids to improving human rights and democracy is the first step. Awarding the Nobel Peace Price to a Muslim and Iranian woman (Shirin Ebadi) is an elegant and hopefully efficient stimulus. In extreme case, military intervention cannot be avoided. The ongoing war in Iraq - despite its doubtful legal foundations - represents a method to break down the Islamic Bermuda Triangle. In this sense, the war in Iraq is a 'strategic war' against the roots of terrorism, while the war in Afghanistan stands mostly as an "operational war" or simply a "theâtre d'opérations."

When combating Islamism, one of the main problems and difficulties is how to deal with millions of Muslims who are living in Western countries. Starting from the facts, it is apparent that Muslims in western countries are far too dispersed to constitute a compact bloc. In terms of social, cultural, political and religious orientations, the division among them is deep and real. Roughly, Muslims are divided into two large categories: Muslim Believers and Cultural Muslims. Islamists are predominantly issued from the first category. Cultural Muslims represent an agglomerate of peoples embracing agnostics, liberals, socialists and so on. In general, Cultural Muslims do not represent any tangible threat. The attention therefore must be oriented to the Muslim Believers who roughly are divided into Moderates and Radicals. Both are potential sources for Islamism; the former lesser than the latter.

Now, how to identify a Radical Muslim today in the Western countries? In this regard, there are a number of helpful indices. First, a Radical Muslim is of course a believer, who practices the rituals of Islam. But, this alone is not enough. A Radical Muslim is a man (rarely a woman--perhaps because Prophet Muhammad expressed his skepticism over women's capacity to hold a secret!). A Radical Muslim is constantly in communication with others. He can be a lonely man in the city and locality where he lives, but is with permanent communication with the outside world. Communication goes through mail, e-mail, fax, telephone (mobile and public) and so on. He is also a man who reads much and is generally a quiet person carefully avoiding clashes with the police and other public authorities. He is also traveler, a globetrotter! He is a young man with an average age of 25-27 years. In Southern Europe, Radical Muslims are issued from North Africa (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia). In the U.K. essentially from Pakistan. In Scandinavia, from Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt and Pakistan. Iranian Islamists are working under the auspices of Iranian authorities, generally as diplomatic personnel or as business persons.

Conclusion

Today, the world is facing a single global terrorism, which is Islamist. In my analysis, I did not approach the force of the global terrorism. I took it as a given fact. Islamist terrorism is perhaps not as powerful as some people would imagine. However, according to Institute for Strategic Studies (in London), Islamist terrorism has been reinforced following the war on Iraq (October Report 2003). We may say that global terrorism at least appears as a huge troublemaker. In this study, I tried to demonstrate that the real danger lies somewhere else. Islamist terrorism is the expression of a totalitarian ideology. Therefore, the world is facing a new totalitarianism, which has been neglected for decades. Consequently, combating Islamist terrorism cannot be reduced to a simple classic counter-terrorism. Classic Counter-terrorism's highly necessary efforts and investigations must be accompanied by coherent political, cultural and economic actions.

In short, my propositions to combating Islamist terrorism without combating Islam are resumed in the three following points:

¢ Continuous pressure on Islamists and, if necessary, conduct of war;
¢ Dialogue and cooperation with moderate Muslims, and
¢ Effective support to democratic forces inside the Muslim world.

© Mehdi Mozaffari

Related Links

• What Is the Difference Between Islam and Islamism

How to Combat Radical Islamists

ArabComment » In the Name of Hijab?

 In the Name of Hijab

As an American Muslim woman who chooses the hijab, I was shocked, enraged, and saddened to hear of the murder of 16-year-old Aqsa Parvez in Mississauga, Canada. Aqsa was a young Muslim girl struggling to balance the more traditional values of her family with Western culture.

This brave young girl was allegedly killed at the hands of the man that should have been protecting her: her own father. Canadian media has reported that the 16 year old argued with her father about wearing the hijab, or traditional Islamic headscarf. Friends said she would leave the house in traditional dress and change into western-style clothing when she arrived at school.

Her father, Muhammad Parvez, called 911 to report that he had killed his daughter on Monday, December 11th. She died from her injuries only hours later. Her 26 year old brother has been charged with obstruction of justice for failing to cooperate with police. To me, Aqsa is a martyr for the freedom of individual choice.

I am especially distraught that this alleged murder happened in Canada, home of “Little Mosque on the Prairie,” a TV sitcom produced by a brilliant Canadian Muslim director, Zarqa Nawaz. In the episode, “The Barrier,” first aired earlier this year; the teenage girl, Layla and her very conservative father, Baber, disagreed about her attire. She was an active girl and didn’t want to be restricted by her garments. She hid the fact that she had had her period—a traditional moment when girls are encouraged to begin covering their hair–for fear that her father would want her to wear a headscarf. While the two fundamentally disagreed about the issue, as is the case in most civilized families (Muslim or not), violence was never an option.

To some zealots, there is no place in heaven for a Muslim woman who doesn’t cover her hair. For some, it is an ancient patriarchal tradition that should be abolished. But American Muslim teens themselves are embracing the autonomy that Islam and America afford individuals. In recently released The American Muslim Teenager’s Handbook, Yasmine Hafiz, her brother, Imran Hafiz, and their mother, Dilara Hafiz, of Phoenix, Arizona, advise teens (and parents): “According to the Quran, as long as Muslims are dressed modestly and behave respectably, no specific dress code is required… modest behavior is also encouraged, therefore ogling the cute boy in Chemistry class or leering at the cheerleaders is definitely out! …Each person must read the Quran for herself and form her own opinion.”

Teens and others are turning to interpretations of Islam that assert that there isn’t one way to look if you’re a Muslim girl or woman. According to the distinguished Islamic scholar, Reza Aslan, “The veil was neither compulsory, nor for that matter, widely adopted until generations after Muhammad’s death, when a large body of male scriptural and legal scholars began using their religious and political authority to regain the dominance they had lost in society as a result of the Prophet’s egalitarian reforms.”

Some so-called “traditional” Muslims argue that ‘Western’ women are oppressed because they must derive their self-worth from the gaze of men. However, it is also true that within some Islamic communities a woman who does not cover is not afforded the same respect as one who does. The expectations are different but the result is the same; a woman’s worth is still determined by others, including men.

While living in Yemen, my friend, Kelly Wentworth, who is also a convert to Islam, experienced pressure to cover herself that did not stem from a religious mandate but a cultural one. As the wife of a Yemeni man, if she chose not to cover, the society would consider it a dishonor to her husband’s family.

It is essential that men and women make their own choices about dress for internal reasons rather than succumbing to external pressures. This is only possible when individuals have the freedom to choose. Personally, by wearing hijab, I experience a sense of autonomy, confidence and femininity I did not before. Yet, for those who have been forced to wear it, I believe it is a very physical barrier to connection with the Divine. Perhaps it is because of her belief in this freedom of choice that Aqsa Parvez was so viciously murdered.

As a Muslim, a woman, a wife, a daughter and a citizen of the free world, I am outraged by the fact that Aqsa was taken from this earth. No human being has the right to destroy the life that God has made sacred. I am sickened that this man has shamed Islam through his very unislamic acts. There is no place in the world for this kind of intolerant, chauvinistic and bigoted thinking, no matter in what faith tradition it appears.

An important distinction difficult for fundamentalists of all faith traditions is that dress codes are a matter of choice, not religious mandate or obligation. Without choice, no act bears meaning. According to Islamic scripture, an act is judged by the intent with which it was performed. If a woman chooses to wear a scarf because she believes in its benefit to her, she has a pure motive. However, if she covers to please another person, whether that person is her husband, brother, father or mother, while not believing in its benefits, the motive is lost and the act of wearing it loses all meaning.

I believe Aqsa has found her place in Paradise. I pray that in her passing we will not miss this opportunity to take a lesson from the tragedy of her death, inspiring us to practice tolerance, love, kindness and understanding with all, however they are dressed.

Tags: canada, family, hijab, islam, violence

ArabComment » In the Name of Hijab?

Abused Muslim Women in U.S. Gain Advocates - New York Times

 

Abused Muslim Women in U.S. Gain Advocates

Peter Wynn Thompson for The New York Times

A resident of the Hamdard Center for Health and Human Services, a shelter near Chicago that caters mainly to Muslim women.

 

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

Published: January 6, 2008

CHICAGO — After enduring seven years of beatings from her husband, a young Yemeni-American woman recently fled to a local shelter, only to find that the heavy black head scarf she wore as an observant Muslim provoked disapproval.

The shelter brought in a hairdresser, whose services she accepted without any misgivings. But once her hair was styled, administrators urged her to throw off her veil, saying it symbolized the male oppression native to Islam that she wanted to escape.

Instead the woman, who asked for anonymity because she feared further violence from her relatives, decamped to the Hamdard Center for Health and Human Services in suburban Chicago, a shelter that caters mainly to Muslim women by not serving pork and keeping prayer rugs handy. Such shelters are extremely rare nationwide, activists say, because Muslim Americans only recently began confronting the issue of spousal abuse.

Domestic violence among Muslims has long straddled a blurry line between culture and religion, but now scattered organizations founded by Muslim American women are creating a movement to define it as an unacceptable cultural practice. The problem occurs among American Muslims at the same rate as other groups, activists say, but is even more sensitive because raising the issue is considered an attack on the faith.

“The Muslim community is under a lot of scrutiny, so they are reluctant to look within to face their problems because it will substantiate the arguments demonizing them,” said Rafia Zakaria, a political science graduate student at Indiana University who is starting a legal defense fund for Muslim women. “It puts Muslim women in a difficult position because if they acknowledge their rights, they are seen as being in some kind of collusion with all those who are attacking Muslim men. So the question is how to speak out without adding to the stereotype that Muslim men are barbaric, oppressive, terrible people.”

The answer, she and other activists have concluded, is to show that Muslim Americans are tackling the problem.

“Domestic violence is an issue we can deal with as a community, and not by saying we don’t have this problem, which is obviously a lie,” Ms. Zakaria said.

Some activists describe being expelled from mosques and holiday fairs when they first tried to broach the topic five years ago, but they have achieved a wider audience by allying themselves with sympathetic clerics.

The Yemeni-American woman sought advice from several imams after her Yemeni husband of just a few months started to slap, punch and degrade her.

The clerics offered marriage counseling, but only if the husband came too, a condition she knew doomed the idea. Her sister suggested she lose weight and be more obedient. Her father encouraged obedience, too, while her husband hit her through three pregnancies. After she filed for divorce, she said, her father hauled her home and hit her too, for shaming him.

“Both my dad and my husband told me that women don’t talk back,” said the 29-year-old woman. “They told me the Koran said I had to be obedient, and I answered that it does not say beat up your wife.”

At Hamdard, calls for help come from Muslim women as far afield as Wisconsin, Kentucky and Louisiana, shelter workers said, far more than they can accommodate with just 11 beds. They turned away 647 women and children in 2007, said Maryam Gilani, the director of Hamdard’s domestic violence program, noting that about 55 percent of the women the center helped were Muslim. Some large, wealthy Muslim communities, like the one in the San Francisco area, have been unable to raise money for a shelter, which activists attribute to the wish to label the problem as foreign to Islam.

“There was resistance, and there still is,” said Ms. Gilani, adding that opponents dismissed shelters as some kind of brothel. “There are some who say what we do is not right, you have to stay with your husband and make it work. They try to turn it either into a religious thing, or they say that it is just a normal thing that happens in the family.”

The challenge for most organizations is getting accurate legal information to women who are often closeted at home and may not speak English. Hamdard developed several novel solutions. Briefing area grocery store owners and hairdressers that cater to Muslims produced numerous referrals. More often, it organizes mosque seminars about breast cancer, then slips in a few minutes about domestic violence.

Activists describe mosques as the most effective way to reach Muslims because immigrant societies remain heavily patriarchal and because American mosques serve as community centers. The latter also means that immigrant imams ill-equipped to deal with social problems are prone to give battered women advice like “Read the Koran more,” or will try couples counseling, which can bring disastrous consequences at home.

One outspoken cleric is Imam Muhammad Magid, who runs a collective of seven mosques in suburban Virginia and is vice president of the Islamic Society of North America, the country’s main Muslim umbrella organization. Anyone getting married at one of his mosques must undergo marriage counseling during which domestic abuse is discussed.

But activists expect real change will only come with the next generation of Muslim women here, raised in an American context that condemns such violence.

In most Muslim countries, the law is rooted in a combination of the Koran and tradition, so immigrants are more reticent.

“It is much more difficult there to say I want a divorce, I want custody or my husband is forcing me to have sex without my permission,” said Samira Ansari, a family lawyer in San Jose, Calif. “Because they don’t get that legal support back home, it takes them a while to understand what exists here.”

Mr. Magid said older immigrants in particular refused to hold men accountable and expected imams to advise the wife to return to her husband.

“So many people emphasize trying to keep the family together regardless of the pain or consequences,” he said. “We tell them that the foundation of the family is peace and tranquillity and if that doesn’t exist, then the family doesn’t exist as a unit.”

To counter opposition rooted in religious texts, Mr. Magid and others use the example of Prophet Muhammad. There is no record of him striking one of his wives; rather, he would withdraw when angered. The raging debate comes with Chapter 4, Verse 34 in the Koran, long interpreted as giving husbands the right to strike their wives as the final step in an escalating series of punishments for being rebellious.

Maha B. Alkhateeb, who helped edit a book on domestic violence called “Change From Within,” is among the leading activists pushing a new interpretation of the verse that understands it as calling for women to be obedient to God.

But given that the Koran is considered the unassailable word of God, it is particularly difficult for young, often secular women to promote a new interpretation.

Although few men cite the Koran as justification for hitting their spouses, Ms. Alkhateeb said that in every seminar she organized about ending domestic violence, at least one man invariably asked on what authority the verse could be reinterpreted.

Toward that end, Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, the outreach director for Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., is trying to set up a nationwide movement of Muslim men who will lobby for the new interpretation.

“That is the linchpin, the fulcrum that justifies domestic violence in the Muslim context,” the imam said.

Abused Muslim Women in U.S. Gain Advocates - New York Times