Mohamad Abdalla

Towards understanding what Australia’s Muslims really think

Over the past decade, issues concerning Islam and Muslims have featured prominently in public and media discourse. Much of this discourse is stereotypical, anecdotal and often unsubstantiated. Indeed, relative to the extent of comment on Islam and Muslims, few factual data exist on what Muslims really think. This article presents the views and opinions of the Queensland Muslim community based on the findings of a survey conducted at the 2009 Muslim Eid Festival in Brisbane. The findings of this research contradict many of the assumptions made about Australia’s Muslims concerning their views and opinions on a range of social and political issues. The research shows that Muslims highly value Australia’s key social and political institutions, including its democracy, judiciary, education and health-care systems. However, Muslims do express a lack of trust in certain institutions, namely the mass media. Also, consistent with the views of people globally, Muslims are deeply concerned about conflicts in the Middle East as well as the environmental crisis. This article suggests the need for a shift in public discourse to more accurately reflect the commonality, rather than incongruity, between Muslim views, opinions and concerns and those of the wider society.

A Critical Examination of Qur’an 4:34 and Its Relevance to Intimate Partner Violence in Muslim Families

This article examines Islams position on wife beating in the context of intimate partner violence (IPV). Though research indicates multiple causes of IPV, Islam is often singled out as the main cause for violence against women in Muslim societies, based on the interpretation of Qur’an 4:34 (which seemingly supports wife beating). This verse is often interpreted out of context and Islams position on IPV is confused with the issue of nushuz (contentiously translated as wifes disobedience, flagrant defiance, or misbehavior). The lack of accurate translations compounds the problem for English readers. This article critically examines the legal meanings and implications of nushuz found in verse 4:34 within the context of IPV. The authors contend that contextual understating of this is imperative for positive clinical engagement with Muslim clients.

Radicalization and Terrorism: Research within the Australian Context

Terrorism perpetrated by some Muslims has become a global phenomenon that has significantly impacted many nations. In the post-September 11 era, Australia has experienced threat of terrorist attacks from organisations including Al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah. In response to this phenomenon the Australian government has heightened security measures and engaged various strategies to counter-radicalization. While the growing body of global research focussing on radicalization and terrorism may inform such strategies, research within the Australian context would provide a cogent platform for assisting in the response to terrorism at a national level. This paper provides discussion focussing on the paucity in literature on the question of radicalization and terrorism. Furthermore, significant gaps in the literature are highlighted and future research recommendations are suggested that would assist in broadening current understanding of the processes of radicalization and terrorism.

Behind a Veil: Islam’s Democratic History

For all the impressive contributions Islamic civilisation has made to humanity, particularly in terms of science and knowledge, democracy is almost never associated with Islam. From the Western perspective, at the heart of the alleged divergence between Islam and the West is a predominant view that Islam is antithetical to democracy. This has been promulgated by the writings of a whole collection of scholars who portray Islam as a radical and fundamentally undemocratic movement, which poses a threat to the future of Western civilization. Judith Miller, for instance, writes that, ‘despite their rhetorical commitment to democracy and pluralism, virtually all militant Islamists oppose both’ (Miller, 1993: 45). Similarly, Martin Kramer offers that Muslim appeals to democratic principles ‘bear no resemblance to the ideals of Europe’s democracy movements’ (Kramer, 1993: 40). For his part, Bernard Lewis gives a more nuanced account, stating that there are prospects for the compatibility of Islam and democracy due to Islam’s proximity to the Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman heritage, but that, as Islam manifests itself politically, it ‘seems to offer the worst prospects for liberal democracy’ (Lewis, 1993: 89). For Lewis, as for many other Western scholars of the region, there has always been an absence of democracy in the Muslim world, and Islam is responsible.

Religious Perspectives on the Use of Psychopharmaceuticals as an Enhancement Technology

The use of psychopharmaceuticals as an enhancement technology has been the focus of attention in the bioethics literature. However, there has been little examination of the challenges that this practice creates for religious traditions that place importance on questions of being, authenticity, and identity. We asked expert commentators from six major world religions to consider the issues raised by psychopharmaceuticals as an enhancement technology. These commentaries reveal that in assessing the appropriate place of medical therapies, religious traditions, like secular perspectives, rely upon ideas about health and disease and about normal human behavior. But unlike secular perspectives, faith traditions explicitly concern themselves with ways in which medicine should or should not be used to live a “good life”.

The Way Forward for Muslim Women: Reflections on Australia’s Social Inclusion Agenda

Among the most socially excluded communities in Australia today is the Muslim community, and within that community, Muslim women and Muslim youth are especially excluded. Whilst social exclusiveness of Muslim youth is a serious problem, this chapter will focus on Muslim women only. The essential argument is that if Australia is to succeed in socially including Australian Muslim women, discourses and institutions that depict Islam and Muslims as the ‘enemy within’, ‘culturally incompatible’, that ‘elements of Islam have an agenda hostile not only to Australia’s values but also to the basic tenets of Western civilisation’, and that Muslim women are oppressed and subjugated, need to change substantially. Successful social inclusion of Australian Muslims, including Muslim women, requires a paradigm shift in the way we think, write and speak about Muslims in general and Muslim women in particular. The chapter will examine the way Muslim women have been and continue to be portrayed in Western discourses (media and otherwise), and contrast that to their status from a legal Islamic perspective, using Islam’s primary sources of legislation as evidence, together with recent empirical findings about the way Muslim women define themselves. The analysis of this data will be used to argue for a more constructive social inclusion approach.