I strongly recommend that you read Juan Cole of Informed Comment’s post on the terrorists arrested on Thursday in Miami.
I just saw the spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations on CNN saying that the Miami cult members just arrested are not Muslims. I’d say that is a fair statement.
In this post Professor Cole hews more closely to his professional training than he sometimes does and I’m sincerely grateful for the benefit of his learning:
It seems pretty obvious that they are just a local African-American cult which mixed Judaism, Christianity and (a little bit of) Islam. It seems to be a of vague offshoot of the Moors group founded by Dwight York. I heard on CNN that one of them talked of being Moors. And Batiste, the leader, called whites “devils” in the tradition of the original Nation of Islam and York’s Moors. Now CNN is saying one member said they practiced witchcraft [likely meaning Haitian voodoo or perhaps Santeria-like rituals]. One former member is called Levi-El, suggesting he might be associated with the Black Hebrew movement or an offshoot. Now a relative of one of the members, Phanor, said that they wore black uniforms with a star of David arm patch and considered themselves of the Order of Melchizadek. I wonder if it is “Seas of David” or “C’s of David”, with “c” meaning commando or some such?
Read the whole thing—it’s well worth it.
Here’s the corresponding statement from CAIR’s web site:
A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group today called on media professionals not to refer to seven terror suspects arrested in Miami as “Muslims.”
The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said media reports indicate that the suspects are part of a sect called “Seas of David.”
When asked by CNN why group members refer to themselves as “soldiers,” “Brother Corey” said: “Because we study and we train through the bible, not only physical — not only physical, but mentally.” Group members also worship in a “temple,” not in an Islamic mosque.
[…]
The group bears some resemblance to the cult of Yahweh ben Yahweh, which operated in the same part of Miami, Liberty City, in the 1980’s.
“Given that the reported beliefs of this bizarre group have nothing to do with Islam, we ask members of the media to refrain from calling them ‘Muslims,'” said CAIR spokesperson Ahmed Bedier. He thanked U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta for noting that “today’s indictment. . .is not against a particular group or a particular faith.”
Bedier urged the government to avoid confusing the public by using Arabic terminology in referring to the case. In a briefing today in Miami, government officials did not call the suspects “Muslims,” but did refer to allegations of plans for “violent jihad.”
At a news conference earlier today in Miami, CAIR called on police departments nationwide to protect mosques and other Islamic institutions from any possible backlash prompted by the mistaken linkage of this case to the American Muslim community.
I’m a little puzzled by the CAIR spokesman’s observation. I’m woefully poorly informed on this subject but it was my understanding that the requirements for being a Muslim were actually quite limited: the profession of faith, the daily prayers, the giving of alms, fasting during Ramadan, and the pilgrimage to Mecca; and that, further, critiques of another Muslim’s faith, particularly sight unseen and at secondhand were discouraged in Islam. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than I can correct me on this.
The term “jihadâ€, objected to by CAIR, is used in the grand jury indictment of the seven arrested and defined there—it’s used as a sort of shorthand. I believe that al-Qaeda spokesmen use the term in a similar way and I don’t recall CAIR having condemned that. Since the specific charges are related to the group’s professed desire to join al-Qaeda, it seems to me that while perhaps uncomfortable to CAIR the use of the term is reasonable. Can someone correct me on this? I would very much appreciate it.
This paragraph of Professor Cole’s:
Imagine the horror of an urbane Arab-American professional with university higher degrees, steeped in Islamic culture and contributing to American society, at being lumped in by the American press and officialdom with these cultists who appropriated his religion for their violent religious fantasies.
concerns me. For one thing it reminds me uncomfortably of a satirical joke recounted by John Burgess of Crossroads Arabia. I suspect that Professor Cole’s hypothetical “urbane Arab-American professional†would be similarly appalled at being “lumped in†with Bedouins from the remote central regions of the KSA, tribe members in Waziristan, and Moros in the Philippines and, yet, they’re all Muslims.
That’s what concerns me most about Cole’s comment: I think it undercuts the best argument against blanket Islamophobia. For me that’s the remarkable diversity in belief and practice in Islam with the overwhelming preponderance of adherents significantly more concerned about being good, pious people, taking care of their children, and getting from day to day in one piece than in waging religious war against the West.
Osama bin Laden is (or was) an urbane Arab professional with advanced university degrees, steeped in Islamic culture.
Your listing of the “requirements” to be considered Muslim are about right, though many Muslims will disagree saying, “If you believe X, you can’t be Muslim.”
But there is no body that determines orthodoxy within Islam–and again, there are some who would love to so designate themselves as just such a body. The Saudis had a hard time dealing with Black Muslims/Nation of Islam in the 1980s, but found that they could not come up with a definition that excluded the NoI but still permitted other, heterodox Muslims. They ended up “admitting” them. It should be noted, though, that the NoI also moved a bit toward the center about that time.
It’s convenient to say, “Oh, but they aren’t us!” when groups such as this do bad things. But it’s no more meaningful than saying “Oh, but Bin Laden isn’t a good Muslim.” By whose standards? And why should those standards be accepted?
Lacking a governing authority to decide such questions, the claim to be a Muslim, no matter how heterodox, must be accepted at face value. The alternative is to get a sufficient number of Muslims to state publicly, “Those guys aren’t a part of us.”
Maybe this is what CAIR and Cole are trying to do. Their effort will succeed if they can get a majority of Muslims to agree. But so far, there’s remarkably little commentary about the Miami group.
Thanks, John.
What concerns me about the distinction I see being made is on the one hand they’re jumping to disavow a handful of poor Americans of African ancestry but not moving nearly so quickly to critique a rich Arab of Yemeni ancestry. Do they believe the same things? Who knows? Maybe they’re just not urbane or professional enough.
I still want to know who is behind this movement. Someone has fed jihad propaganda to these guys. Even if they lack the skills of an Afghanistan-trained terrorist, the could still be useful as cannon fodder or to tie up our security people.