Political talk has different focus - Islam

In a talk that combined religion and government, Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad addressed the relationship between politics and Islam before a crowd of roughly 40 students in Houston Hall last night. Ahmad, the president and director of the Minaret of Freedom Institute, the author of three books and a teacher at both Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland, came to Penn as part of this year's Islam Awareness Week. Other sessions in the past several days have focused on the role of women in Islam and Jesus' relationship to Muslims. This week of "awareness" is not a new idea and has been an annual event for at least a decade, according to Muslim Students Association board members. Ahmad was booked, according to one of the students involved in the event, because his topic fits in perfectly with the current election. "We chose to focus on politics given the political energy at this time of year," said College freshman Ben Herzig, an MSA board member. While munching on cookies and sipping coffee, the crowd listened to a history of the Islamic legal system. "Islamic politics evolved by a process of discovery," Ahmad said. He added that one must look upon the laws of mankind with the same eyes that one looks at the physical sciences of physics or chemistry. "The physicist assumes there is an objective law of gravity and his attempt is to discover what that law is. Muslims approached the law of humankind in the same way," he said. Ahmad emphasized that Islam is, first and foremost, a monotheistic religion. "What I always tell my audience is that if you forget everything else that I say, please remember that the fundamental teaching of Islam is that there is only one God because everything comes from that," he said. He then attempted to clear up some misconceptions regarding Islamic history and law. "The idea that Islam is spread by the sword is absolutely false," he said. He further explained the irony of this comment by explaining that throughout history Islam has usually spread faster when on the losing end of the sword. Ahmad then opened his discussion to questions and began discussing the current political situations in both the U.S. and the Middle East. Ahmad shed light on Muslim political inactivity in this country. "A great debate among Muslims is to what degree political activity in this society is permissible," he explained. "This system is so corrupt that any participation results in an endorsement of corruption. "So I would never vote for someone who is going to do an immoral activity," Ahmad emphasized. Ahmad further pushed voting for a third-party candidate. "If they [third parties] had gotten a million Muslim votes, it would have been noticed," he said. For College sophomore Ahsen Janjua, Ahmad's most important message was that of communication. "What is very important is... to bring out your ideas so you can learn even if your idea is wrong. It's important to get it out to help people better understand what is right," Janjua said.