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To the Editors:

The Oct. 31 Editorial in The Oberlin Review, “Oberlin needs Arabic Studies,” was timely and well-argued. However, I would argue that Oberlin needs Islamic Studies, rather than Arabic Studies.

A little background that is relevant to this matter. In 1990, I founded the Oberlin Muslim Students Group (MSG, now renamed MSA). I did this with the assistance and sympathy of Kosher Co-op and Rabbi Shimon Brand. It was a positive example of Muslim-Jewish cooperation — an antidote to simplistic media stereotypes about supposed “historic enmity” between our two peoples.

From 1990 onwards, there were several attempts to start Islamic Studies at Oberlin. Although the founding of the MSA was quite smooth, the push for Islamic Studies found no traction with the College administration. Because it was a student-championed project, as each successive year graduated, continuity and leadership on the project was lost. At that time, the campus was also engulfed in several explosive issues: the trial of the “Oberlin 6” arrested on the President’s lawn, President Starr’s pending departure and the first Gulf War. Islamic Studies was one among many issues fighting to get attention on an activist campus. The departure of Professor James Morris, a world-renowned Islamic Studies specialist, also weakened the initiative. It is a pleasure to see that the project has once again gathered strength. Hopefully, Oberlin will finally take bold steps to fill this yawning gap in its core curriculum.

However, I have one key disagreement with the present initiative. Reference is made to geopolitics, global diversity and understanding our world today. For this, what is needed is Islamic Studies, rather than Arabic Studies. Only 20 percent of the world’s Muslim population of one billion is Arab. There are more Indian Muslims than Arab Muslims, and Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population. North America has an explosive boom in new converts, especially among the African-American population.

Although Islam was born in Mecca, diversity was its hallmark from the very beginning. The Prophet Muhammad’s earliest followers included Bilal the African slave, Ibn Sailam the Rabbi, Suhaib the Byzantine Roman and Salman the Persian. Today, there are clear differences within the Islamic world between the various axes. There is a struggle for leadership between the oil-rich Arab world and the Persian axis led by Iran; between the Europe-ward tendencies of Turkey and Sharia-dominated Nigeria; the Baul mystics of Bangladesh and the militant Jamaatis of Pakistan. In America and Europe, there are new Islamic variations that are unthinkable in Third World Islam — such as strident Muslim feminists and out-and-proud Gay Muslims (“Queer Jihad”). In short, there is both conflict and cooperation, traditionalism and experimentation, harmony and strife.

All of this diversity would be erased, or crammed into a footnote, by the creation of an “Arabic Studies” program. I urge the students, College and Trustees to broaden the scope of the project to the creation of an Islamic Studies program.

–Naeem Mohaiemen
OC ’93
Associate Editor, AltMuslim.com
Editor, Shobak.Org