Remembering 9/11: Tufts Professor Talks Muslims and Sept. 11

Professor Kenneth Garden from the Tufts University Religion Department recently took the time to answer a few questions on Muslims and 9/11. Here's what he had to say:

Patch: The Sept. 11 attacks brought many unfair, negative stereotypes to Muslims; in your view, have those perceptions stayed the same, improved or gotten worse over time?

KG: We should keep in mind that 9/11 happened over 20 years after the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis and a little under 20 years after the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut in 1983. 

Thus, 9/11 did not present a new image of Muslims but one that built on previous images. That having been said, I think the image of Muslims in the United States has gotten worse over time. 

I was impressed with how well President Bush addressed anti-Muslim sentiment, holding fast-breaking meals in the White House during Ramadan, repeatedly proclaiming Islam a “Religion of Peace,” and consistently arguing that al-Qaeda was not representative of most Muslims and, in fact, not truly Muslim at all. 

There are three recent events I take as evidence that anti-Muslim sentiment has grown.  The first was the claim that President Obama is a Muslim.  As Colin Powell pointed out, even if he were, it shouldn’t matter, and the most striking thing about the accusation is the unspoken assumption that calling a public figure a Muslim is an accusation and something that would discredit them. 

The second was the Ground Zero mosque controversy and the vehemence of the protests against the opening of a center that was neither at Ground Zero nor a mosque.  If President Bush insisted that the War on Terror is not about Islam, the demonstrations showed that, for many people, it is. 

Finally, there is the current campaign to prevent an alleged conspiracy to impose Sharia law on the United States.  It is hard to see how it could strike anyone as plausible that the 2% of the American population that is Muslim is scheming to impose Islamic law on the nation, but Newt Gingrich publically took a stand against Sharia law.  This shows how far we have come from the efforts of President Bush to deflate anti-Muslim sentiment.

Patch: How is 9/11 discussed, if at all, in higher education courses on Muslim and Islam?

KG: I can't speak to higher ed in general. But, ten years later in my classes, my students still have vivid memories of 9/11.  This is not surprising given that we are still involved in two wars that grew out of those attacks. 

In my classes we rarely talk about 9/11 as an event, but we do talk about groups like al-Qaeda and thinkers who present Islam as a militant ideology like al-Sayyid Qutb or Ayatollah Khomeini. 

When talking about contemporary Islam, I try to give a broader perspective on trends in Islam over the past century so that students have a sense of how representative al-Qaeda is of contemporary Muslim thought and opinion. 

Patch: What do you think is the most important thing for the general public to understand in terms of Islam and 9/11?

KG: 9/11 raised troubling questions about Islam for Americans of all religions.  When trying to understand the relationship between Islam and the attacks of 9/11 or other acts of violence committed in the name of Islam, it is important to formulate the right questions.

Can we make generalizations about Christianity that cover all books of the Bible? Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Protestants?  Quakers and Pentecostalists?  Second, fourth, tenth, eighteenth, and twentieth century Christianity? Mexican, Scandinavian and Ugandan Christianity? Opus Dei and Liberation Theology?  Can any one Christian or any one Christian group speak for all Christians? 

In the end, I think we have to conclude that we are better off talking about Christians and not Christianity because we can only make detailed statements about specific Christians in specific places and times.

Likewise, we are better off talking about specific Muslims in specific places and times.  It is certainly important to understand what drives militant Islam in the modern world, but it is as important to understand that contemporary militant Islamists do not represent all Muslims or Islam as such.