MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Not long ago in my little mosque around the corner from a McDonald’s, a student from the university here delivered a sermon. To love the Prophet Muhammad, he said, "is to hate those who hate him." He railed against man-made doctrines that replace Islamic law, and excoriated the "enemies of Islam" who deny strict adherence to Sunnah, or the ways of Muhammad. While he wasn’t espousing violence, his words echoed the extremist vocabulary of Wahhabism, used by some followers to breed militant attitudes. Like others who listened that day, I was stung by the sermon. It stands in chilling contrast to reforms taking place within Muslim communities nationwide. ...
Like many small mosques, mine does not have an imam. Instead, a governing board — which appoints its own members — sets policy. An elected executive committee is supposed to decide who will lead prayers and deliver sermons. With infighting, that committee disintegrated over the last year, and went vacant after the board failed to hold elections in November. The board took over managing the mosque. A month before the student’s speech, he and about 10 other men staged the equivalent of a coup. They appointed five in their ranks as the "temporary executive committee" and usurped the board’s power to choose who will lead prayers, preach and make management decisions.
These men rally around strict interpretation of the Koran and Sunnah, which last week entailed a sermon that criticized women working outside the home and called women who have lost their chastity worthless. The group has packed the mosque’s bookcases with fundamentalist publications. Even though a majority of the mosque’s membership, which is largely made up of West Virginia University students and staff members, is moderate, passivity by it and the board has allowed extremism to take hold. One board leader told me that the board doesn’t want to "get aggressive." .... continues |