SAJAforum

AUTHORED: Dilara Hafiz on "The American Muslim Teenager's Handbook"

Introducing SAJAforum's new "Authored" series. The idea here is to have writers tell us the back story of their book--how it came to be--as well as the nasty, unwriterly business of getting out there and selling their wares. We think this will accomplish two things: get the word out about new or upcoming releases, and educate other authors (and aspiring ones) about the biz.

Authors, editors, publicists: talk to us.

Our inaugural book is "The American Muslim Teenager's Handbook," by the mother-daughter-son combo of Dilara, Yasmine and Imran Hafiz, who are Pakistani-American. The book is being released on February 10, by Simon & Schuster, but as you'll see in Dilara's account, the work only got picked up by S&S after the family initially self-published it. She also provides some great insights into the marketing of the book, setting up a website, getting blurbs and how going after the NYT can in fact pay off, handsomely.

The Story Behind "The American Muslim Teenager's Handbook" - by Dilara Hafiz, Yasmine Hafiz and Imran Hafiz

The Idea...

“You’re writing a non-fiction book about Islam in America…with your two teenagers?  Are you crazy?”  This was the standard response I received from various friends and relatives - but I’m grateful that it was the occasional comment of “Oh, that sounds interesting - I think you guys could do a great job!”  that we listened to.

The Why…

Life in post 9/11 America has been challenging for America Muslims: the ‘random’ searches at the airport, the impression that hijab = oppression, that Muslims are "the other." We heard so many misconceptions about Islam in the media, yet no coherent Muslim voices ever got airtime.  Where are the Moderate Muslims?  Well, we’re fairly moderate - maybe we should speak up.  So in 2002 we sent out a survey to 44 Islamic full-time and Sunday Schools across the country. The 150 responses which we received displayed such a variety of opinions and stories that we felt motivated to continue with our project - of not only writing an educational and entertaining handbook for the average American Muslim teenager, but also an enlightening guide to the basics of Islam for non-Muslims who are curious about Islam or want to pursue an interfaith dialogue. 

The How...

After three years of writing, re-writing, editing and surreptitious editing (remember, we’re 3 authors here) - our manuscript was finally ready.  Full of quizzes, lists of Do’s & Don’ts, results of the teen questionnaire - we knew we wanted the book to appeal to teens, so it needed to have pictures, humor and variety.  But the response from Muslim publishers?  Too progressive - you have pictures of girls without headscarves - haraam!  The response from mainstream publishers?  Your audience is too narrow, your treatment of religion is too humorous, your information content is interesting…but we’re going to pass on this manuscript. The project was badly stalled, until my Dad decided to go on Hajj in 2006. 

MAGAZINES: Launch of Elan: The Guide to Global Muslim Culture

Elan, a quarterly magazine on global Muslim culture has launched a special complimentary issue to commemorate President Obama’s inauguration ceremony that took place last week. Long-time SAJA member Nida Khan, editor-in-chief writes about this moment that signals the "potential for improved relations with the Muslim world":

As the guide to global Muslim culture, we here at Elan felt compelled to honor the 44th President of the United States via this special inauguration issue.  Barack Hussein Obama not only possesses a keen understanding of the complexities of society but has demonstrated his willingness to engage in discourse and seek amicable solutions even with our opponents.

Let me be clear, we are in no way identifying or even juxtaposing Obama as a Muslim, nor providing fodder for his challengers.  We are instead celebrating and honoring our next President who, by his very nature, experiences and principles truly does represent hope for the millions of Muslims - and non-Muslims alike - on this planet.  Hope that our country’s fundamentals of civil liberty and freedom will remain intact; hope that together we can collectively eliminate social blockades and work effectively towards unifying us all.

From the press release:

In this inauguration edition, elan presents a variety of commentaries on Obama’s impact with Muslims around the world, including two exclusive features written by Ilyasah Shabazz (Malcolm X’s daughter) and Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Muhammad, a renowned civil rights leader.

You can contact Khan, who is based in New York, via nkhan[at]elanthemag.com

In What Malcolm Taught Barack, Shabazz, the author of ‘Growing Up X’ writes:

OBAMA INAUGURATION: Religious pluralism and our new president

In his inaugural address, President Barack Obama made a point of proclaiming:

"[the United States's] patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth."  [link]

This morning, at the Washington National Cathedral, the Inaugural Prayer Service extended Obama's message of spiritual pluralism by including participants from a variety of different religious traditions. Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America, and Uma Mysorekar, president of the Hindu Temple Society of North America, were two of the six participants to give responsive prayers during the service.

SAJAforum readers may recall Mysorekar from her appearance on The Colbert Report and her efforts to have Diwali placed on New York City's official "parking holiday" calendar. Mattson, who is a professor of Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford Seminary, is "the first woman, the first nonimmigrant and the first Muslim convert" to be elected as ISNA's president.

The video of the service is available here, and the text of both Mattson's and Mysorekar's responsive prayers appears in the official program for the service:

MUMBAI ATTACKS: India hands over evidence to Pakistan

Pakistan acknowledged that it had received a long-awaited dossier of India's evidence on the Mumbai attacks. From AFP:

India on Monday handed to Pakistan what it said was evidence linking the country to the Islamic militants who attacked Mumbai in November, India's foreign minister announced.

The government also said it was launching a major diplomatic offensive to maintain international pressure on Islamabad, which has so far rejected New Delhi's demands to extradite a list of terror suspects.

The information is also being shared with other governments. More on the contents:

The material includes details of the interrogation of Mohammed Ajmal Amir Iman -- also known as Mohammed Ajmal Kasab -- who was the lone surviving gunman and who India says is a Pakistani national.

It also details the militants' communications with "elements" in Pakistan during the attack, recovered weapons and other equipment, retrieved global positioning system data and satellite phones.

More importantly, perhaps, are these revelations in The Wall Street Journal, showing that Pakistan's own investigation of the attacks have established links between the gunmen and its intelligence services:

At least one top leader of militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, or "Army of the Pure," captured in a raid earlier this month in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, has confessed the group's involvement in the attack as India and the U.S. have alleged, according to a senior Pakistani security official.

The disclosure could add new international pressure on Pakistan to accept that the attacks, which left 171 dead in India, originated within its borders and to prosecute or extradite the suspects. That raises difficult and potentially destabilizing issues for the country's new civilian government, its military and the spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence -- which is conducting interrogations of militants it once cultivated as partners.

BANGLADESH: Secular coalition wins election in a landslide

Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her secular Awami League coalition won yesterday's election overwhelmingly, defeating an Islamist-right coalition led by another former prime minister, Khaleda Zia, with her Bangladesh National Party. The election, seen by many as a milestone in the country's history, ends two years of military-backed rule by a caretaker government. Human rights activist and SAJAforum contributor Asif Saleh gave us a preview of the election yesterday--here he looks back on the results for The Guardian:

Two miracles happened in Bangladesh yesterday. Firstly, 80% of the Bangladeshi electorate – a record number – voted in one of the most peaceful elections in the country's history. Secondly, they voted for a party that believes in secularism and by a majority big enough for it to control 85% of the parliamentary seats.

It's a resounding endorsement of democracy and an emphatic victory for pluralism in the world's second-largest Muslim majority country.

In this CNN interview, Asif said much of the Awami League's success lay in its ability to turn out the youth vote, with promises of jobs and a longterm vision called Vision 2021 (more about that here).

Meanwhile, Mahfuz Anam exults in The Daily Star of Bangladesh:

What however is not explainable by the anti-incumbency factor nor simply by people's desire for a change is the massiveness of the rejection of the BNP. The near rout of this once mighty party, who just the last time got two-third's majority, is the clearest sign that people are sending the strongest possible message of their disgust for what happened from 2001 to 2006 and are punishing BNP and its allies for the way they run the country.

Yesterday votes was a total, complete and comprehensive rejection of the BNP and its allies for corruption, political violence, nepotism, Hawa Bhavan, the role of Tarique, Arafat, Falu, Harris, Babar, etc. for obliterating the distinction between the State, government and the party, politicising every branch of administration, for instituting a culture of impunity where party henchmen considered themselves above the law. Finally for turning a blind eye as terrorism and fundamentalism spread its ugly tentacles throughout the country.

More from Jyoti Thottam and Haroon Habib in Time magazine:

A few months ago, Bangladeshis were worried that their fragile democracy was heading the way of Pakistan, where much of the political power resides with the military or the mullahs. By turning out in massive numbers on Dec. 29 to hand a decisive victory to the Awami League, which campaigned on its secular, reformist credentials, Bangladeshis hope they have steered their nation past those twin shoals.

BANGLADESH: An election, at last

[An election update by Asif Saleh, the founder of the human rights group Drishtipat. For a solid backgrounder on the events leading up to this much-delayed election, read Asif's earlier post]

After much uncertainty, the election in Bangladesh finally took place today. Upon the lifting of the state of emergency by the two-year old caretaker government, the last two weeks saw frantic campaigning by two of the main alliances: the secular one run by the Awami League and the Islamic-right coalition of the Bangladesh National Party (BNP). In a stunning setback for the government, the High Court allowed some of the politicians convicted during the emergency rule to contest the election, overruling the Election Commission. However, the Election commission did manage to keep some reforms intact, making it possible to conduct a much cleaner election. 

Many observers agreed that until two weeks ago, it was the Awami League alliance's election to lose (the alliance comprises 14 parties). But Khaleda Zia, the former prime minister and current BNP head, ran a tireless campaign, darting around country almost 'round the clock and managing to close in.  In terms of message, though, BNP ran a much more negative campaign based on fear mongering.  Their key selling points were that Islam and the country's independence will be in danger if the Awami League is voted to power. 

On the other hand, another former prime minister, Awami League's Sheikh Hasina, focused on the young voters--a huge number of whom are voting for the first time--and talked about a vision for 2021. In the absence of good pre-election polling, no one is sure which message is connecting more with average voters. But Khaleda Zia seemed to have brought back home a lot of the formerly-disgruntled BNP supporters, turned off by her son, by apologizing to the public right before the election and articulately telling the narrative of the sufferings on her family in the past one year under emergency. 

INDIA-PAKISTAN: War on the horizon

One month after the Mumbai attacks, the India and Pakistan militaries are preparing for war even as officials try to lower (and heighten) tensions publicly. The two countries have fought three full-fledged wars--one right after independence in 1947, another in 1965, and the third in 1971, ending in the creation of Bangladesh--as well as the more limited Kargil war/conflict of 1999.

I've highlighted some of the Western coverage from this weekend, much of it reported out of Islamabad, followed by articles and opinion pieces out of India and Pakistan. Please add your own links to coverage in the comments section.

The New York Times--"Pakistan Moves Troops Amid Tension with India":

Some of the Pakistani officials who spoke of the redeployment said it was partly a response to new intelligence that suggested India could launch an attack inside Pakistan by early next week. All of them spoke on the condition of anonymity.

<snip>

But two Pakistani intelligence officials — one from military intelligence and one from the country’s premier agency, Inter-Services Intelligence — described the situation in graver terms, and said troops along the border with India were on the highest state of alert.

Another Pakistani official said the air force had been in a “point defense” posture for one week, prepared to defend specific key defense installations and cities — including Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Lahore — as well as the Kahuta nuclear weapons laboratory. Pilots are sleeping in uniform with their boots on, the official said.

The Wall Street Journal--"Tensions rise as Pakistan Moves to Redeploy Troops":

"We ourselves have accepted that we have a cancer," said Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in a televised speech Saturday. "They are forcing their agenda on us."

In the speech, Mr. Zardari made repeated references to his late wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was killed a year ago Sunday in a suicide bomb attack blamed on Pakistani militants.

CNN--"Pakistan moves troops to India border":

In London, England, Pakistani envoy to Britain Wajid Shamsul Hasan countered the report, noting that winter redeployments are normal and that only police and not the army had their vacation canceled. While he criticized India's "coercive diplomacy" and regretted India's "war hysteria," he underscored the fact that the two countries don't want to go to war.

POLITICS: Muslim conference prompts gay-evangelical love, peace, harmony

President-elect Barack Obama's selection of conservative fundamentalist minister Rick Warren, who supported California's Proposition 8 in last month's elections, to deliver the invocation at the presidential inauguration has caused many of Obama's progressive supporters to feel a sense of "betrayal," as Neil Buchanan has written at Dorf on Law. Singer, songwriter, and Prop 8 opponent Melissa Etheridge, who is openly lesbian and has been a longtime activist for gay rights and other progressive causes, had much the same initial reaction. While she had never previously heard of Warren, she wondered whether Warren was a "hate spouting, money grabbing, bad hair televangelist like all the others," and whether she should boycott the inauguration on account of his selection.

Given the controversy, Etheridge was "stunned" to learn that Warren would be giving the keynote address at the Muslim Public Affairs Council's annual convention in California -- where Etheridge herself was scheduled to appear with Junoon's Salman Ahmad to perform "Ring The Bells," a song they had co-written "call[ing] for peace and unity in our world." (Since December, apparently, is "Using Music to Change the World Month," the MPAC performance was intended to initiate a broader "Ring the Bells for Peace" Campaign, which you can read more about here.)

Etheridge says that she initially contemplated canceling her appearance at MPAC on account of Warren's appearance. However, as she recounts at the Huffington Post, Etheridge ultimately decided on a different approach to the situation:

MUMBAI ATTACKS: NPR's Philip Reeves on the coverage

[See SAJAforum's full coverage of the Mumbai attacks]

We recently heard from National Public Radio's Madhulika Sikka about how her network managed its coverage of the Mumbai attacks (NPR's Comprehensive Coverage). In that post we also noted all the reporting done by NPR's New Delhi correspondent, Philip Reeves. He just sent us his own thoughts on covering the attacks - including how his job was in some ways made easier - and offers a critique of the media's handling of the crisis. These are his personal thoughts, and don't represent NPR.

On the assignment and its challenges:

The assault on Mumbai was not an easy assignment. It unfolded on multiple fronts. There were three sieges at once. There were hundreds of unanswered questions. The attacks raised key issues - domestic politics, geopolitics, security, international terrorism, economics and more. All sorts of conflicting claims filled the air waves - as always happens in the aftermath of attacks. All had to be treated with care. The Indian and international electronic have grown a great deal in recent years: Officials were overwhelmed with a flood of demands for instant information. There were so many reporters and cameramen that it was simply impossible at times to get anywhere near some of the officials involved, because they were swamped and drowned out by yelling. The demand for material from NPR headquarters was naturally very high; the story could hardly have been more important, or more dramatic.

On access, and the kindness of strangers:

However, some of the conditions in Mumbai were helpful. One was the amazing candour and generosity of the Mumbai people. They were willing, in this time of tragedy, to spend time talking about what happened, and what it might mean. They offered help in finding places; advice about who to talk to, and more. Another was the access we all had. You could see a fair amount of what was going on. For a radio correspondent, this is obviously important: it means I was able at times to describe the scene with a fair amount of detail. And I was able to get close enough to hear and record the battles as they played out; this also helped me convey a picture of events to the audience.

On media hype:

BLOGS: Kamran Pasha blogs from Mecca

A few months Sree posted an item about screenwriter Kamran Pasha's upcoming novel on Aisha, the young wife of the prophet Muhammad. It's called "Mother of the Believers" and will be out in April, from Atria books. Kamran's TV credits include Sleeper Cell and Bionic Woman, and his video game credits include 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand.

Right now, however, Kamran is on Hajj, with his mother, and he's blogging about his journey.

Here are some of his recent entries.

From November 19, before leaving the US for Saudi Arabia:

My mother was always afraid to go on Pilgrimage. She was terrified of crowds, and the idea of spending days in the desert of Saudi Arabia surrounded by three million worshippers gave her panic attacks. Every year she would say: “Next year, insha-Allah.” If God wills. I always smiled indulgently at her words, knowing that God’s will was a convenient excuse for her own stubborn inaction. A pint-sized Pakistani firebrand who has lived in America for thirty years, my mother is a modern Muslim feminist.

Upon arriving in Medina, they check in to the Hilton and walk with their pilgrimage group to the Prophet's Mosque, the largest house of worship in the Islamic world:

I don’t think I can put in words the emotions that ran through me when I stood at Prophet Muhammad’s grave.  A unique mixture of joy and sorrow.  Joy at finally being able to address the man who I believe to be God’s messenger.  And deep sorrow that I can only do so through barriers of stone and earth rather than face-to-face as had those who were lucky enough to have lived at his side.