…just not as expected.
It seems that what the government wanted and what the lower house accepted were two different things. The government’s vision was a law where mosques would need to get authorization from the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs for anyone who wants to preach, give sermons and guidance, or teach in those mosques. This was rejected by the deputies and so were the higher penalties that required a maximum imprisonment of 1 year and a maximum fine of 600 JDs.
According to the Jordan Times:
The governmentâ??s call for the amendments was due to its desire to regulate all acts taking place in mosque.
Deputy Nidal Abbadi (Amman, Sixth District) said the new law restricts freedoms, adding that it is in violation of Article 14 of the Constitution which reads: â??The state shall protect the rights to perform religious rituals, in accordance with the Kingdomâ??s perceived norms, unless they are deemed in violation of public order or manners.â?Â
I don’t see how the originally proposed law contradicts article 14. If the new Amman Message is considered the Kingdom’s norm then the government gets to set the norm and everyone has to abide by it. I honestly believe the government should regulate sermons in Jordan. There should be a unified message and one that reflects an established Islamic norm. I don’t like going to one mosque that preaches tolerance and moderation and then going to the other side of the city to hear a list of people in the world that deserve to die and I think religious freedoms in this case should stop at the water’s edge, in fact they should stop well before that.
We are two months shy of the first anniversary of a terrorist attack that embodied the destructive consequences of religious extremism. Regulation is especially important in Jordan where Muslims not only come to the prayer for the sake of the sermon but also are willing to travel to another mosque for the sake of a “better” sermon. Sometimes this is done because the imam is more eloquent or knowledgeable, but other times, especially outside Amman, people will go to a mosque that represents their political views.
Mosques are the only real arenas to spread the national consensus on Islamic views; schools come a close a second. This is mostly because not everyone completes their education and even if they do mosques remain the main social setting for establishing and sustaining religious foundations. In that spirit the deputies also scratched out “preaching, teaching and giving guidance” as one of the law’s provisions and reserved it only to “giving sermons”. Evidently Islamic education is not as important as Islamic preaching, at least not important enough to require legislative protection.
Abaddi also stressed that given the wider definition of constitutional rights concerning religious freedoms in light of the proposed law, it would mean anyone who preaches without authority from the Ministry or Minister is therefore in violation and is subject to it’s punishment i.e. regardless of the material they were preaching. I see the point but I find it to be invalid. To preach in a mosque you should have the license and authority of the Ministry. It’s as simple as that. It doesn’t matter if youâ??re a great moderate preacher or a preacher spreading a hateful message. Otherwise it’s like arguing that there shouldn’t be a law punishing people for driving without a license because it also means that the “good” drivers who donâ??t have a license would also be punished.
The government has also started two-week training courses on khutba skills. In my opinion they should be made mandatory.
What I know is that in Islam, not just anyone can be a khateeb or a preacher! it’s a huge responsibility and a very important position. What’s even more dangerous than a random, personal khutba is issuing fatwas left and right, but I think a law has been already approved to ristrict and organize the whole thing. I just don’t understand why people want to separate religion from the government and the country. Doesn’t that sound just WRONG!
It’s an Islamic country, so what’s with freedoms?? It’s not about freedom, it’s a bout basic rules in Islam, regulations, control and accountability!!
Exactly! I was just talking to a friend about this particular subject!
Here, in the chicago-land area there are plenty of mosques…I’ve been to quite a few of them, some of which I never went back to… I choose to go to the one that I believe fits what Islam truly represents and my life the most … But what I don’t get is why aren’t preachers unified in view when it comes to the teaching of Islam?
Isn’t this case anyway! in order to be an Imam, certain requirements must be met – theology background … sharee3a degree? (and that alone doesn’t necessarly qualify a person!) but, ultimately, imams and preachers shouldn’t be random chosen indvividuals without a solid background of the religion and sharee3a.
I don’t know what to think of the idea of government having control over who gets to give sermons at mosques and more importantly who no longer can do so in the future. I kind of see where you’re going with the need to promote a unified message that reflects some kind of Islamic norm in the country, but to me what is Islamic goes beyond the scope of this country, and I’m not sure what level of coordination will exist between people who will define this norm in our country and their equivalents in other countries in the Muslim world.
hamzeh, i think it’s gotten to a point where we need to worry about establishing our own norms even though the Amman Message is based on a unified international appeal from many clerics. that being said, it’s not simply giving the government control over who gives sermons but rather centralizing a system that requires a central message to be delivered. they need to train them, educate them, distribute them, fund them, accredite them and lisence them.
OH MY GOD!! I never thought you would ever say anything like this ya Naseem.
I honestly believe the government should regulate sermons in Jordan. There should be a unified message and one that reflects an established Islamic norm.
Since when are you an advocate of a big-brother state?
just change the word “sermon” with “article” and the word “mosque” with “newspaper”!! Do you want the government to dictate what journalists write? (to provide one unified message that reflects the one true way?) Do you want the government to dictate what lectures political science professors can give in universities? (to provide a unified national message to our youth?). I hope you start seeing the gravity of such a law.
How is this different from MEMRI’s campus watch? where they want to marginalize professors who “spread lies about Israel’s gentle existence”!
You are using the SAME LOGIC that the dictators of the arab world and Islamic radicals use to ban the all disagreeing thought: ban the Communist party, the Socialist books, the Secular schools, because “we need to protect the country from destabalizing forces – from ‘fitna'”!!
Let me summarize my points:
1- Mosques, universities, newspapers, and political parties: these are all public platforms for FREE SPEECH.
2- What is so special about Mosques? that they have large emotional audience of all society classes? so is TV, and churches, and universities. if you start “controling” thought in mosques, where do you stop?
3- Since when CENSORSHIP is the tool for TOLERANCE! Controling sermons will only push the radicals to the underground, where they can NEVER be reached by the moderate preachers!
4- The only way to fight radical thought is with moderate thought. The only solution is to allow moderate preachers to debate and win the people’s hearts and minds. Use convincing religious arguments to win people over.
5- On what basis do you assume that the government will always be rightous and the mosques will always be bad? mosques, throughout history, have played a major role in reviving the society’s conscience (think 3iz bin Abdel Salam & the Moghuls, Saladdin and the Crusades, and many others).
To hear this is one thing, but to come from you is VERY SCARY!!
Apparently, the media was able to velify mosques down in your subconcious. You are talking about radical islamic preachers as if they are Voodoo Magicians who use out-of-this-world magic to control the naive masses. And thus, you’re justifying using FORCE to stop them, as if nothing else can work. And, our jordanian people are not naive masses – they are you and me.
Naseem, really? when the situation is tough, you don’t mind cracking down on free-speech & civil liberties?
I respect you greatly and love your writings dearly. It hurts me to read stuff like this from you. I really want to debate this to the end to make sure where you stand. This is very important.
Salam,
As I’m re-reading my post, I feel I was a bit too harsh. Sorry – didn’t mean to. I talk to you in a frank manner like a close friend. I hope you don’t take that against me.
mohammad, take it easy, the khutba law doesnt govern the press or education or anything other than what the ministry of awqaf and islamic affairs have jurisdiction over which is mosques and imams…and yes those are areas of our society that need to be governed especially at a time when some sermons contain hateful messages and ive prayed in some of these mosques so im aware of it.
also, the government is not righteous but the official islamic position taken by the government is based on the amman message which was decided upon not by the government but by many moderate islamic thinkers inside and outside jordan, the government merely endorsed and adopted the message. if an imam wants to preach about killing jews and christians then he should move to saudi arabia or iran. if not, then it should be expected that his message be censored or in my opinion a resignation should be expected as well.
imams dont use voodoo magic to overtake the masses…but to deny that they have massive ideological influence on the masses, especially those in the poorer areas that tend to be less educated and yes, easily influenced, to deny that would be naive.
its not about controlling thought but controlling the message that comes out of the loudspeakers in mosques. and mosques are a meduiem of religion and ideology that outrank tv, media and anything else simply because it’s seen as absolute and non-negotiable…u can throw things at your tv when u dont agree, or change the channel…you cant disagree with religion. these are the social constraints we have to deal with.
again this is not a law that spans over everything…its simply this area of life that i feel needs to be regulated. we are not talking about universities or the press…the khutba law is for mosques and what is being taught in them. we cannot leave that to general social discretion…that’s what we have now and it doesnt seem to be working
Salam ya Naseem,
I understand that the goal of this law is to stop radicalism from spreading in Jordan, which is a goal I deeply agree with. However, I disagree on the implementation.
I know that we really hate the radical opinions, but, is this how a liberal society works? if we hate an opinion, then we censor it by force? Israelis hate our opinion of “right of return”; they see it as a “destructive opinion for peace in the region”. Do they have the right to censor it?
let’s start a rational debate:
1- do you agree with free-speech? how do you define it?
2- do you agree that some censorship is OK?
3- where do you draw red lines for censorship? what is the principle for deciding that a “speech” has crossed these lines or not?
4- how does radicalism cross the censorship lines, and thus must be curbed by force?
I think if we both agree on 1, 2, & 3, we can discuss 4 in a logical manner.
let me answer all your questions at once: im anti-censorship, but mohammad this is not something that deals with censorship per se. this isn’t the government censoring what a person writes in a newspaper it’s about preaching a hateful message. it is about stopping the spread of a dangerous ideology that is harmful to our own people over all else. ideology is not an opinion, and ideology wrapped in a veneer of religious doctrine is even more deadly. we have to be able to distinguish between the two things and I think you might be confusing censorship with regulation.
i have a problem with the government censoring what we say in a newspaper for example but i have no problem with the government regulating what ideology is preached in mosques, especially since that ideology has proven to be deadly.
so again, its not opinion, its an extremist ideology and there is a vast difference between the two.
Naseem,
Define ideology.
How is ideology different from opinion?
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below is my opinion of what ideology means. to continue the debate, you can just answer the questions above.
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ideology is just a “label” one can stick to a group of opinions
“extremist ideology” is another label that means you disagree greatly with it (which means either your opinion is extreme, or the other side is, or you both are)
Those radicals think that secularism is an “extreme ideology”. Does this give them the right to censor secularism?
If we allow censoring any opinion we label as “extremist ideology”, then Israelis can call “right of return” an extremist ideology that aims at erasing Israel from being. Thus, they can censor it.
Secondly, using force against these “ideologies” will just validate them in the eyes of their followers “the government is after true Muslims like us. The government arguments have failed, and thus they are using force”.
I understand your frustration with such ideologies, but censorship is the ultimate sin in a liberal society. Once you go down this path, you’ll end up like Stalin.
The ultimate problem with censorship is:
1- who decides what is “extreme ideology” and on what basis?
After a long historical debate, Liberal societies (e.g. Canada, USA, Europe) finally decided that no one can ever decide what is inappropriate, not even the majority of people. Thus, they declared “freedom of speech” for every individual.
I see no loophole outside this censorship problem.
first of all, an ideology differs from an opinion. an ideology is a well established doctrine, it is in part a vision and a methodology of implementing that vision. zionism for instance. suffice to say ideology does not mean opinion, and extremist ideology does not mean an opinion i disagree with.
second of all, what force? how is it wrong for the government to reform the way Islam is taught and preached in this country, especially when there are those who are preaching a version of it that in turn mandates killing and destruction and even harm against our own citizens? how is it wrong for the government to lisence the people who do the preaching and make sure a hateful doctrine is not spread into the minds of impressionable minds? how is it wrong to make sure those who preach are qualified to do so? if you have children going to school do you want unqualified teachers preaching jibberish or do you want someone who is qualified?
third of all, this isn’t force, this is law and there are always laws that restrict the transgressions on any freedom of speech that seeks to incite hatred or violence. and again i believe you might be confusing censorship with regulation the same way there seems to be a confusion between opinion and ideology.
if someone disagrees with israeli or american policies, they can rant and rave about it in an article in the newspaper, even from an Islamic perspective. i don’t care. i might agree with their opinion or disagree with it but i believe that opinion should be protected by freedom of speech that entails no censorship. but if someone takes that same opinion and embeds into an ideology in which they preach from a mosque to incite people to go out and kill any foreigner, christian or jew that they see, then this is different. again, we have to able to distinguish between these two concepts. in the same way we should have laws that protect the right to have criticism but protect against slander. we cannot put them in the same category simply because they have similar elements.
Salam Naseem,
ideology is … a vision and a methodology of implementing that vision
and a vision is just an opinion about where we should head in the future.
and the methodology is an opinion of how we can reach that vision.
instead of saying opinion, say “thoughts”. freedom-of-speech grants freedom for expressing thoughts, ideas, opinions.
when I said “force” I meant this: if the law passes, and an unlicensed preacher goes and gives a speech after Asr for 5 minutes, police will come and take him out using force. Thus, the government is silensing him by force.
As I said before, I agree that something must be done about radicalism. But I think this law is not the answer.
Here are my full arguments:
1) The government doesn’t have right to control mosques:
a- henders freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
b- It can easily be misused to limit what people shoudl believe in as religion – thus affecting religious freedom. (e.g. if the government uses it, for example, to supress certain religious opinions that have nothing to do with violent-radicalism, e.g. bank-interest, Sunni/Shia, etc.)
c- Governments are never fit to control religion. Government is an executive branch. Thinking about religion should be left to the Academia.
d- Mosques are fully funded, from building expenses to operating expenses by volunteers and philanthropists, usually from the surrounding locality of the mosque. Why should the government control the mosque then?
2) We already have enough laws to “regulate” thought in masjids. This law goes beyond to “control” thought. Here are the other laws:
a- government can prevent individuals from ever preaching in public (and unfortunately this is used not against violent-radicals but against moderate opposition, e.g. Ahmad Nofal, head of Islamic Studies at Univ of Jordan).
b- Juma Khutba preachers are all appointed by the government and their names are published in the newspaper every Friday. Khateebs who delve into opposition politics do not get chosen again for Friday. (I lived in Hai-Nazzal and I’ve seen this happen).
c- We already have laws against public speeches that incite racial and religious conflicts.
d- The proposed law tries to be “pre-emptive” against (for now violent radicals) but can easily be used against political opposition.
3) It won’t work.
a- Such measures would validate the claim by radicals that the government can’t win the argument against them, thus have to use force.
b- Such measures would validate the opinion that in an Islamic State, it’s OK to suppress opposition parties, because the government is doing that to these groups now.
c- Such measures would push these groups to the underground, where moderate preachers can never reach them to convince them otherwise. Thus, the only way to fix this problem will disappear.
In my opinion, the solution is:
1- Allow these groups to exist and bring them to the surface (even, allow them to create a party – just like in US & Israel, where you have some real wacky extreme parties, who are marginalized because people can evaluate them fairly against others)
2- Once they are in the open, they can’t use their strongest argument: “We are so good, the western-influenced “democratic” government can’t even tolerate us”. Once they lose this attractive argument, they are much weaker.
2- Once they are in the open, their arguments and counter-arguments can be publicly debated, and the weakness of their opinions will become apparent. And they will become marginalized, just like other extreme parties in other countries.
3- The only way to conbat thought is with thought, and religious arguments with religious arguments. Currently, because these groups have “secret existence”, their followers never get to hear both arguments on the same level.
4- As long as these groups are not conducting illegal operations or trying to get weapons, I see no problem with them.
what the Prophet Mohammad introduced to the world was an ideology: a vision with a methodology…it was not an opinion.
and why not? if the person is a preacher then he goes and gets a lisence. it’s a rational expectation of society and of the state.
a- henders freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
b- It can easily be misused to limit what people shoudl believe in as religion – thus affecting religious freedom. (e.g. if the government uses it, for example, to supress certain religious opinions that have nothing to do with violent-radicalism, e.g. bank-interest, Sunni/Shia, etc.)
c- Governments are never fit to control religion. Government is an executive branch. Thinking about religion should be left to the Academia.
d- Mosques are fully funded, from building expenses to operating expenses by volunteers and philanthropists, usually from the surrounding locality of the mosque. Why should the government control the mosque then?
a) restricting a violent ideology is not a restriction on freedom of speech or religion. telling them they can no longer pray would be hindering freedom of religion.
b) the government isn’t dictating what people should believe in, the Amman message is crafted and agreed upon by many many scholars. it’s as mainstream islam as islam can get and it is restricted to religious practices that have nothing to do with life outside mosques or religion class.
c) government is also made up of the legislative branch, it has a constitutional right to legislate and therefore regulate the actions of society.
d) lol are you kidding me? most of the funding for all the mosques in the country comes by way of the ministry of awqaf, our tax money. you can even give them a call. except for the select few that get their funding from charities or as you said philanthropists.
a) I agree but as freedom of speech expands you will find that there will be a push for the moderates to speak up. It’s an unfortunate side effect right now although I believe it to be limited, but there are far more radicals that I’d rather be dealt with.
b) i lived in a high end area where ministers and MPs would attend prayer and hear political opposition being preached and nothing ever happened. moreover, they shouldnt be preaching politics anyways…their religious preachers not poli sci professors or politicians.
c) great, now we can have those same laws being applied to that same hate speech that is preached religiously in mosques.
d) the government is not going to silence political opposition through a khutba law…politics should not be preached in mosques. i have no problem with an imam telling me about aspects of my religion, about our history, about our faith and practices and how we should act as Muslims…but i have a problem with someone preaching the killing of jew, christians or the overthrow of the government.
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a) the radicals can think whatever they want…letting them continue to preach hate only validates them as well.
b) when the government banned parties…that was supression, it still has the power to do that but instead it has encouraged parties to be involved in the political process. we are moving that direction apparently. preachers in mosques are NOT the opposition, they are not politicans…they are preachers, imams.
c) moderates dont need to convince them. by putting an end to radicalism and promoting moderates, the moderate islam will eventually prevail and dominate social thought. there will always be radicals but they’ll have less people to recruit.
1- giving them a platform only validates them politically and religiously which is a very dangerous combination. we are not the US and we are not Israel, we have our own social constraints and our own religious constraints. we cannot expect to adopt their way of doing things and get the same results.
2- the best way to weaken radicalism is to enhance and strengthen moderation. this law sets the tone for it.
3- there’s no secret existance…these guys arent exactly “underground”..ive been to mosques all over the country and I can hear what they say. they are not in the majority but they exist and they are certainly not underground. in fact the government has done little to surpress them especially if they are lisenced. in the middle of a khutba i find myself thinking that this guy is going to jail before the day ends, but there he is next friday doing the same thing.
4- you dont have to wait until they start drawing up the blueprints for a terrorist attack…I think we have a right to stop radical thought that tells hundreds of people every week to go out and kill out of some religious duty, before it gets to the point of weapons purchasing or even exporting terrorists
I see your points, and I still have one main concern: (and I’ll let all the others go)
How do you guarantee that this law will be used ONLY against violent radicalism and not against political opposition?
Who gets to decide what is radical and what is not?
How do you guarantee that it will not be misused?
This is the biggest problem with any kind of censorship – who gets to decide it. Under the banner “for the benifit of the country”, anything can be labeled “radical” and banned, just like what USSR did.
because the khutba law doesn’t cover political opposition or political parties, it is designed for preachers in mosques. political opposition is in the arena of political parties in the parliament…parties do not and should not be preaching in mosques.
who gets to decide what is radical…the preachers who came up with the Amman Message that was based on the Islamic conference. moreover radicalism is more easily identifiable these days: an imam who talks about praying 5 times a day or fasting is different from an imam who says go out and kill the jews or kill the people who deal with them.
how can i gaurentee it wont be misused..i cant..no law in the world comes with such gaurentees.
again, its not censorship its regulation. as for the overreaching powers of the government, yeah i acknowledge it’s there, it’s everywhere, ussr, usa, uk or jordan. i can only hope for accountability and the legislative constraints of the laws. i feel the khutba law is pretty constrained to religious khutbas, especially this final revision that doesnt include preaching and teaching, although i dont agree with it nevertheless it is a legislative constraint.
an imam who talks about praying 5 times a day or fasting
political opposition is in the arena of political parties in the parliament
I highly disagree with both these statements.
Imams who only talk about how to pray to God & about past history, we call “those who talk about what is above the sky and below the ground”.
A real liberal democratic society is one conscious of its surrounding and cares about how it’s run. Radicalism we don’t want, but “politics” MUST be part of everything in our life, from home to mosque to school.
I want an educated Imam who will bring my attention during Khutba to some corruption taking place in a company or defends civil liberties or encourages people to go question their elected officials.
I’ve heard this idea from secularist before. I’m a humanist, and almost a secularist, but I disagree with this idea.
I feel secularists talk about religion as if it’s a bad source of influence they dislike. Their solution is to separate religion completely from anything in society except “praying”. That is a shame. In a real democratic liberal society, we must tolerate all groups, those who want to pray and they do whatever they want, and those who believe that religion is an encompassing way of life – from politics to praying and from economics to alms giving.
If we don’t allow all these ideas to be discussed and practiced freely, we’ll have a suppressed society that will eventually blow up. And, worst of all, by shutting others up, we’ll never know when we are wrong.
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unrelated question: how do you add quotes to text in your comments? I tried , , , , but nothing seems to be working. any ideas? 🙂
i’m sorry muhammad I guess we disagree on this. I feel Imams should base their khutbas on religion, even social commentary and religion which is the norm. but they should not be a meduiem for communicating politics or being involved in political rhetoric. and by the way you are arguing that the government should not interfere with religion but asking religion to interfere with politics.
my whole life is about politics and i could agree more that a real democratic society is one conscious of its surroundings but politics should not be in the mosques. if people want politics they should join a political party. but to have an imam point out corruption during the friday prayer?
I am not especially a secularist, but i do not believe politics should be preached in a mosque, especially the kind that is wrapped in a radical violent ideology that preaches either revolution or killing. there are specific meduiems for everything and a mosque is not a place for the imam to tell everyone every friday “the list of things that piss me off this week…a) the clouds b) the government…”
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just wrap the words in “blockquote” and “/blockquote” but add <> to either end
Salam,
I’m actually glad we reached this point. After my last post, I started thinking about why we differ, and you’ve pointed it out. You’re not against freedoms (which is great), you’re not the type of person who sacrifices liberties for perceived security (which is great). The main difference is that you see mosques purely as a place for worship and nothing else.
Even if you believe that, (and I know many who do), being in a democratic society, we have to respect all the citizens. A good portion of them believe that mosques must be revived and used for much more than pure worship: from socializing to education to politics to fun (they say much like the time of the prophet, where the mosque was the main gathering place for the people).
Our laws should be able to stop radicalism and in the same time respect the diversity of opinions of our citizens. As we crack down on radicalism, we shouldn’t shut down patriot citizens who love their country, respect others, and in the same want to meet in a mosque.
mohammad i respect all citizens but there are certain realities we have to face, and the desire to see the mosque revived as more than a place of worship is a bit idealistic in these sad times. to go back to the time of the Prophet might be desirable but today politics/ideology in many mosques is used to recruit people and that is a current reality.
this law is designed to shut down radical islam, they’re not shutting down the mosques, simply regulating what the imam is saying in the friday khutba, so lets not jump the gun and run down some imaginary slippery slope.