Can Muslim Religious Leaders Unite?

In December 2006, the administration attempted to push for the constitutional change process by convening the House of Representatives of the Philippines and the Senate of the Philippines into a Constituent Assembly or “con-ass” (one of the three modes of which the 1987 Constitution could be amended). This move was widely opposed by civil society organizations as well as the public. Immediately, the Catholic Bishop Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), the El Shaddai movement, the Jesus is Lord Movement (JLM), the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP), and even the normally reclusive Iglesia ni Cristo (INC) announced the organization of a prayer rally to oppose the attempts to railroad charter change. A few days before the rally, reacting to the pressure from the various religious leaders, then Speaker Jose de Venecia, announced that he is putting a stop to efforts pushing for charter change.
Two things are clear from the example above: (1) that religious organizations have the potential to influence the actions and policy of government, and, (2) that while all major religions spoke out in this particular national issue the Muslim religious leaders were prominently absent.
While there is debate as to whether the religious should flex their influence in the realm of politics, there is no doubt that religious leaders, when united, can play a significant role not just in their own communities but in the whole country as well. The potential impact of a united and organized Ulama in terms of promoting peace, development and democracy in Muslim Mindanao is tremendous. An organized Ulama can also amplify the Moro voice in the national discourse.
This is then the question confronting the Ulama (Muslim religious scholars) today: can they go beyond tribal and political differences to move towards the creation of a united national federation? Will the Ulama unite for the Ummah?
The Ulama

The Ulama is the body of Muslim scholars trained in Islam and Islamic law who are the interpreters of Islam’s sciences, doctrines and laws. They are also considered as the chief guarantors of continuity in the spiritual and intellectual history of the Islamic community. Described as the learned men of Islam, these are scholars who possess the quality of Ilm, “learning” or the “the ones possessing knowledge” in a wider sense. From the ulama typically emerge the religious teachers of the Islamic community (ustadzes), theologians (mutakallimun), canon lawyers (muftis), judges (qadis), professors and high state religious officials like the shaikh al-Islām. In a narrower sense, ulama may refer to a council of learned men government appointments in a Muslim state.  It has pivotal roles in ascertaining peace, ensuring stability and forwarding development in Islamic communities.
The Ulama are ubiquitously present in Muslim communities and it characteristically represents the consensus of the immediate Ummah or community of Muslims. In the Philippines alone there are thousands of ulama who provide spiritual assistance to communities. As such, Islamic communities respectfully look up to the ulama for spiritual guidance and moral directions. Interestingly, each ulama reflects the various and unique socio-cultural and political orientation of each community it serves.  Aligned together, a network of unified ulama in the Philippines can bring about a celebration of this diversity and at the same time a collaborative coalition that can bring about positive change and progress for Muslims.
A unified Ulama can become a potent force not just in terms of the Muslim faithful but in terms of peace and development in Mindanao as well as providing a learned and strong articulation of the Moro voice in the national discourse.

Empowering the Ulama Project
Recognizing the crucial impact and the influential roles of the ulama as catalysts for peace and development, Philippine Council for Islam and Democracy (PCID) and the Magbassa Kita Foundation, Inc. (MKFI) has always involved the ulama in consultations and forums. In response to their request as well as PCID’s continuous advocacy work of furthering and enriching the study of Islamic and democratic political thought and the search for peaceful solution to the conflicts affecting the Muslim communities of Mindanao , PCID has embarked on a three (3) year Empowering the Ulama Project. With an omnibus slogan, “One Message, One Ummah,” the main thrust of the project is to facilitate national and regional networking among the numerous ulama in the Philippines. By building strong links, the ulama will be more efficient in tackling Islamic matters and its potentials as spiritual leaders will be boosted. This project was made possible by the support of the British and Netherlands Embassies.
First National Ulama Summit
After a series of consultations held in Zamboanga, Cagayan de Oro, Cotabato, Manila and with the Balik Islam community, some 187 ulama from all over the country attended the First National Ulama Summit held at Bayview Park Hotel last January 28-30, 2008. Paramount to this summit is the move to establish a national organization that can be utilized for the advancement of the Muslim communities in the Philippines.  Such unity is crucial for the promotion of peace and development in the Muslim areas—a united ulama can work better for a common cause. Likewise, an amalgamation of Muslim religious leaders is considered to be “a command of Allah in the Holy Qu’ran.”
The two (2) day summit featured lectures from highly respected and well-known Muslim scholars from here and abroad: including Muhammadiyah Chair Dr. Prof. HM Din Syamsuddin, Nahdlatul Ulama’s Dr. Masykuri Abdillah, Prof. Haji Maarouf Bin Haji Salleh of Singapore’s MUIS and Dr. Muneer Fareed of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Workshops and open sessions were also done to give all the ulama participants the opportunity to express their views and positions on issues. What emerged as a common and resonating concern is that the

…disunity destroys not only the Ulama but the Ummah as a whole. Ummah refers to the community of Muslim believers. Conversely, the unity of Ulama who are regarded as learned and models in the community can also result to a strong and powerful Muslim Ummah because it will provide the Ummah proper guidance with regard to the true teaching of Islam. But to be able to even start the process of unification, all participants agree that it is imperative to emphasize brotherhood by setting aside their personal interests, as well as tribal, group and political differences (PCID National Summit of Ulama in the Philippines: “One Message, One Ummah 2008: 2).

As such, it is vital that the participating ulama will shed their garb of differences and instead embrace a sense of solidarity. In this context, the summit was able to gain a consensus among the ulama to establish an umbrella ulama federation that will involve the various ulama groups already in existence. The federated and “umbrella” nature of the proposed organization was intended to ensure the autonomy of these existing groups while fulfilling the need for a united national ulama group. An eleven (11) member technical working group (TWG) was formed to propose the structure that will embody the ideal of the participants to create a united ulama group. The different regions nominated two (2) representatives from the following areas: Zamboanga, Cotabato, Cagayan de Oro, Luzon/Visayas/Metro Manila. One will come from the Balik Islam community, one from the aleemat (Muslim women religious scholar) group and one from PCID.
With a mandate from the participants of the first Ulama Summit, the TWG, in a meeting last April 2008, produced a set of bylaws outlining the organizational mechanism for Ulama unity.
The bylaws were subjected to various consultations with the Ulama from all over the country. The consultations held in Manila, Zamboanga, Cagayan de Oro and Sarangani Province produced substantive debates and recommendations for amendments but also generated a consensus for the adoption, in principle of the bylaws. The bylaws outlined the provisions on, among others, membership and organizational structure (specifically regional and sectoral representation in the governing board).
Second National Summit of the Ulama of the Philippines.
The Second National Summit of the Ulama of the Philippines will gather more than 200 Ulama from 115 local and regional organizations who are expected to approve the bylaws and thereby launch the historic first federation of Ulama organizations. The historic event is going to be held on January 26-30, 2009 at the Imperial Palace Suites.  Besides launching the first federation of Ulama groups, the summit will also feature respected Islamic scholars and leaders from the region will give lectures on “Islam and the Challenge of Modernity”, and, “Southeast Asian Islam”. Invited speakers are Prof. Dr. Abdullah Saeed of the University of Melbourne, Dr. Hisham A. Hellyer, a principal fellow at the International Institute of Advance Islamic Studies, Dr. Endang Turmudi, Secretary General of Nadhlatul Ulama of Indonesia, and Dr. Anwar Abbas of Muhammadiyah also from Indonesia. The 214 Ulama expected to attend the summit from all over the country will also discuss issues such as: the peace process, governance and electoral reforms in ARMM, economic development and livelihood, da’wah , human rights and women. In this regard, resource persons have also been invited including: Atty. Camilo Montesa, Jr. from the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP); Commissioner Rene Sarmiento of the Commissions on Elections, Atty. Leila de Lima of the Commission on Human Rights, Ambassador Henrietta de Villa of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) and Atty. Mehol Sadain, former commissioner of the COMELEC.
During the closing dinner ceremonies on January 29, 2009, former President Fidel V. Ramos will deliver the keynote address as well as preside over the oath-taking ceremonies of the newly elected officers of the Ulama federation.

Economist: The new wars of religion

Here is an interesting editorial from The Economist on the relationship between politics and religion. While basic democratic principles dictate a clear separation of church and state, the article contends that a deeper study reveals that maintaining that schism is easier said than done. Especially in a Catjolic-dominated country as the Philippines

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Faith and politics

The new wars of religion
Nov 1st 2007
From The Economist print edition

Faith will unsettle politics everywhere this century; it will do so least when it is separated from the state

Illustration by Jon Berkley

Get article background

A RELIGIOUS fanatic feels persecuted, goes overseas to fight for his God and then returns home to attempt a bloody act of terrorism. Next week as Britons celebrate the capture of Guy Fawkes, a Catholic jihadist, under the Houses of Parliament in 1605, they might reflect how dismally modern the Gunpowder Plot and Europe’s wars of religion now seem.

Back in the 20th century, most Western politicians and intellectuals (and even some clerics) assumed religion was becoming marginal to public life; faith was largely treated as an irrelevance in foreign policy. Symptomatically, State Department diaries ignored Muslim holidays until the 1990s. In the 21st century, by contrast, religion is playing a central role. From Nigeria to Sri Lanka, from Chechnya to Baghdad, people have been slain in God’s name; and money and volunteers have poured into these regions. Once again, one of the world’s great religions has a bloody divide (this time it is Sunnis and Shias, not Catholics and Protestants). And once again zealotry seems all too relevant to foreign policy: America would surely not have invaded Iraq and Afghanistan (and be thinking so actively of striking Iran) had 19 young Muslims not attacked New York and Washington.

It does not stop there. Outside Western Europe, religion has forced itself dramatically into the public square. In 1960 John Kennedy pleaded with Americans to treat his Catholicism as irrelevant; now a born-again Christian sits in the White House and his most likely Democrat replacement wants voters to know she prays. An Islamist party rules once-secular Turkey; Hindu nationalists may return to power in India’s next election; ever more children in Israel and Palestine are attending religious schools that tell them that God granted them the whole Holy Land. On present trends, China will become the world’s biggest Christian country—and perhaps its biggest Muslim one too. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, not usually a reliable authority on current affairs, got it right in an open letter to George Bush: “Whether we like it or not,” he wrote, “the world is gravitating towards faith in the Almighty.”
Gunpowder, treason and plot

How frightening (or inspiring) is this prospect? As our special report explains, the idea that religion has re-emerged in public life is to some extent an illusion. It never really went away—certainly not to the extent that French politicians and American college professors imagined. Its new power is mostly the consequence of two changes. The first is the failure of secular creeds: religion’s political comeback started during the 1970s, when faith in government everywhere was crumbling. Second, although some theocracies survive in the Islamic world, religion has returned to the stage as a much more democratic, individualistic affair: a bottom-up marketing success, surprisingly in tune with globalisation. Secularism was not as modern as many intellectuals imagined, but pluralism is. Free up religion and ardent believers and ardent atheists both do well.

From a classical liberal point of view, this multiplicity of sects is a good thing. Freedom of conscience is an axiom of liberal thought. If man is a theotropic beast, inclined to believe in a hereafter, it is surely better that he chooses his faith, rather than follows the one his government orders. But that makes religion a complicated force to deal with. In domestic policy, adults who choose to become Pentecostals, Orthodox Jews or Muslim fundamentalists are far less likely to forget those beliefs when it comes to the ballot box. The culture wars that America has grown used to may become a global phenomenon; expect fierce battles about science, in particular.

Abroad, yes, there is a chance of full-blown war of religion between states. A conflagration between Iran and Israel would, alas, be seen as a faith-based conflict by millions; so would war between India and Pakistan. But compared with Guy Fawkes’s time, when wars sprang from monarchs throwing their military might at others of different faiths, religious conflict today is the result as much of popular will as of state sponsorship: it is bottom-up, driven by volunteers not conscripts, their activities blessed by rogue preachers not popes, their fury mostly directed at apostates not competing civilisations. Ironically, America, the model for much choice-based religion, has often seemed stuck in the secular era, declaring war on state-sponsored terror, only to discover the main weapon of militant Islamism is often the ballot box.
Start praying now

For politicians doomed to deal with religion, two lessons stand out—one principled, the other pragmatic. The principle is that church and state are best kept separate. Subsidised religion has seldom made sense for either state or church: witness Europe’s empty pews. In some cases, separating the two is easy. In private, people can choose to believe that the world was created exactly 6,003 years ago, but teachers should not be allowed to teach children creationism as science. The state should not tell people whether they can wear headscarves, let alone ban “unauthorised” reincarnation (as China did recently in Tibet). But the line is not always easy to draw: this paper disapproves of publicly financed faith schools, especially ones that discriminate against non-believers, but it also believes in giving poor parents more choice—and in American cities the main alternative to public schools is Catholic ones.

The religion that invades the public square most overtly is Islam: it affords secular power the least respect, teaching that the primary unit of society is the umma, the international brotherhood of believers. At its most theocratic, it forces people to follow sharia laws, sometimes with barbaric penalties. Yet Islam can clearly co-exist with a modern liberal state. For all its failures in the Arab world, democracy has taken root in Malaysia and Indonesia. America’s Muslims worship freely and respect its secular constitution—a success the United States should make more of in its foreign policy. But the test case will be Turkey, a secular state currently ruled by Islamists whose progress is being watched with nervous attention.

The pragmatic lesson concerns those wars of religion. Partly because of their obsession with keeping church and state separate, Western powers (and religious leaders) have been too reluctant to look for faith-driven solutions to religious conflicts. Many of those struggles, notably the Middle East, began as secular tribal disputes. Now that they have a religious component they are much harder to solve: if God granted you the West Bank, you are less likely to trade it. “Inter-faith dialogue” may sound a wishy-washy concept; but it is a more realistic idea than presenting a secular peace to competing faiths without the backing of religious leaders. Priests and pastors condemned violence from both sides in Northern Ireland; that has not really happened in the Holy Land.

Atheists and agnostics hate the fact, but these days religion is an inescapable part of politics. Although it is not the state’s business “to make windows into men’s souls”, it is part of the government’s job to prevent grievances from stirring into bloodshed, and fanatics from guiding policy. But it isn’t easy. Catholics did not get back into Parliament for 224 years after the Gunpowder Plot. Unless politicians learn to take account of religious feelings and to draw a firm line between church and state, the new wars of religion may prove as intractable.