The Hopkins Muslim Association (MA) hosted its inaugural Muslim Unity Symposium this past Friday. The event showcased University of Pennsylvania research fellow Sadik Kassim who spoke on the origins of a number of major Shi'a and Sunni Madh'habs, Muslim schools of thought, and the substantial similarities among them.
The Muslim Unity Symposium (MUS) will become a year long lecture series aimed at exploring the pluralism of Islam and promoting greater unity among Muslims. MA Vice President, senior Sabeeh Baig, defined the goals of MUS as a forum to educate about the different trends in Islam, to alleviate tension amongst Muslims and spark inter-faith dialogue.
"This forum we put together to highlight the diversity and plurality within Islam," Baig said.
MUS at Hopkins represents a part of a larger movement towards Muslim unity within the United States.
"It'll take a few more generations," Baig said. "A lot of these ideas of prejudice or fear of a different group are a part of the older generation rather than the new ones. [The movement has] started but as time goes on it should get better."
In the United States, the movement has been attributed to feelings of adversity against Muslims.
"Muslims these days are under attack for many elements, being labelled as being foreigners and not indigenous to this country. Within this context, Muslims feel themselves susceptible to attack and so really the best situation in this case is unity," Kassim said.
Baig expressed less optimism on the issue of the global movement towards Muslim unity. Some advances were made in 2004 with the issuing of the Amman Message, a document generated by Muslim scholars across the globe defining what it means to be a Muslim.
Baig believed cultural norms will be a significant boundary in achieving Muslim unity. Baig cited the example of Pakistan, a Sunni majority country, in which Shi'as are harassed and declared unbelievers.
"It's become ingrained in their culture," Baig said. "It's an ethnocentrisim, a belief in the superiority of your own school."
"[Muslims in Muslim majority countries] don't have an external challenge, so they don't necessarily feel threatened and they don't feel the need to sort of unite," Kassim said. "Whereas [in non-Muslim majority countries], the external threat consolidates the people together."
Kassim believes that the success of the global Muslim unity movement is dependent upon the younger generation.
"It really depends on whether the elders give the youth the opportunity. So if the youth take charge and take leadership positions then I think it will be very successful. But if the youth stand on the sidelines then it is not going to be very successful," Kassim said.
Kassim, however, sees these feelings of superiority as misguided. In his talk, he argued that the particular madh'hab one follows is not as significant as the actions one does.
"There is no right school of thought," Kassim said. "If there were then [Allah] would have made us one unified [Islam].
"He wants us to be unified in terms of our actions, in terms of helping the poor, in terms of being good citizens of the community . . . [and] in terms of protecting the rights of [others]."
