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Column about isle
Muslims stirs dissent

Anyone active in an organized church has heard disagreements along these lines:

"You weren't here when we a) made the decision or b) started the program, so you have no right to complain now or into eternity."

"The committee/trustees/ elders listen to their friends and favorites, and the rest of us have no power or voice."

"This is the way we have always done things. New ideas are unwelcome, impertinent, nontraditional, blasphemous, heretical."

"Those who want to change (the Methodist way, the Catholic Church, Happy Hope Fellowship, fill in the blank) should look for another church."

"I'm taking my energy and ideas to a place where I'm welcome."

People in mainline Protestant denominations go out and start a new congregation over issues like those. Catholics mosey down the block to another parish where the pastor is more progressive or more old-fashioned. People fleeing those nuances flock to charismatic preachers and new flavors of spirituality. Jews solve the doctrinal disputes by separating into branches of Conservative, Orthodox, Reform Judaism and have the tool to change internal power structure because they elect their governing bodies just as Protestants do.

No matter how avid their spiritual direction, there's politics within congregations that can be at the very least distracting and at worst divisive. Be it Buddhist temple, Hindu sect, cloistered convent or historical landmark church, there are humans and so there are politics.

Hawaii's small Muslim community is no different. However deep the internal debate goes at the mosque, some hint of current dissension is visible to outsiders on the Muslim Association of Hawaii's Web page, www.iio.org.

It all started with an April 9 "On Faith" column in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin written by a young Muslim woman who said, "Equality for Muslim women in the mosques is a hot topic among Muslims worldwide." She applauded the courage of a progressive Muslim woman professor who led a New York prayer service attended by men as well as women. The March 18 event stirred a worldwide reaction, not just on the Manoa Web site, about whether she violated the teaching of Mohammed, is an uppity woman and is a disgrace to Muslim womanhood.

Our guest columnist also made some specific complaints about the local mosque. She wished they hadn't changed the former congregational prayer space, putting women apart in a smaller room. It was the men's idea, she claimed, and it impedes women from the chance to speak with the religious leader, the imam.

Well, that was enough to turn the Islamic Center Web page into a cranky chat room on the topic "women, men equal, not same." For other church folks, the subject might be irrelevant, but the tone is familiar. The subject would ring a bell, too, with Protestants of another generation when the movement to ordain women was opposed as heretical. Actually, it still is in many Christian denominations.

Non-Muslims in Hawaii have a strong, positive image of the local Islamic community, fostered by educational outreach by its leadership in the wake of terrorism on Sept. 11, 2001. The Muslim Association president, a gracious and dignified businessman, was everywhere, ever present at large and small gatherings to show the human face of Islam, endlessly patient in answering questions and dispelling misinformation about his religion.

The strength of the mosque leadership seems to be reflected in the online debate. No one but her husband seems willing to express support for the columnist in the face of a barrage of critical messages by a mosque official.

If people do not agree with mosque leadership, they will stay away rather than engage in an argument with them, said Saleem Ahmed, a Honolulu businessman who endured a similar bout of official wrath two years ago when he published "Beyond the Veil and Holy War," which strays from fundamentalist teaching. He used it as a text for several rounds of community classes on Islam, and mosque leaders showed up to refute his view.

Does a peek into our neighbors' church politics undermine respect for them? Not from this direction. It's reassuring to find that as different as our neighbors might seem on the surface, they are just as contentious, opinionated and hardheadedly human as we are. Just as political.

One of the contributors to the cyber-strife claims to be a non-Muslim lawyer, and she's ready to take the imam on as client in a defamation suit against the columnist.

In another commentary a mosque leader said, "Those who strive to change Islam should look for a different religion."

Those comments take the debate into that dark zone of division. A neighbor peeking over the mosque fence hopes the debaters take a break to reflect that as satisfying as it is to express an opinion, someone has the equal right to disagree. There are places where freedom of speech wouldn't be allowed. But here, free speech is a basic element of politics, even in churches.