On Wednesday, journalist and commentator Wajahat Ali announced on social media that the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA, had disinvited him from speaking at their upcoming annual convention in Houston on Labor Day Weekend for his recent work with Israel.
In a letter, Altaf Husain, vice president of ISNA, writes that the organizers reached a decision not to include Ali as a speaker for his “recent work,” specifically citing that “other than our creed as Muslims, there is perhaps nothing more exemplary and unifying than our community’s support for the Palestinian people of all faith traditions, in their struggle against occupation and dispossession.”
Husain did not return a request for comment.
Ali’s recent work includes traveling to Israel and filming a documentary with The Atlantic by speaking to Jewish settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank.
In 2014, Ali participated in the Muslim Leadership Initiative, or MLI, as part of the Shalom Hartman Institute, a program that “invites North American Muslims to explore how Jews understand Judaism, Israel, and Jewish peoplehood.”
Ali told the Washington Examiner that ISNA didn’t give him an explicit reason for being disinvited, but believes it has to do with him speaking directly to Israeli Jews about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and how to resolve it.
“This is a very interesting question. What work?” a puzzled Ali said. “Is it my article with the Atlantic? Are they talking about the documentary? Are they talking about my work with Muslim Leadership Initiative? Are they talking about being left-handed in Jerusalem?”
He continued. “I can only assume it means engaging with the ‘dreaded Zionists’ as part of MLI and writing an article. And what’s interesting is in that article I am very critical of the settlements and on a one-state solution. Secondly, how did ISNA reconcile me sitting by engaging with Zionists when itself says it’s an interfaith organization?”
Ali believes that it’s quite rich that one of the largest Muslim organizations in the U.S. says they embrace speakers with different views, but that when it comes to Israel, there is only one acceptable opinion and only one acceptable approach.
It’s hardly surprising either. There are currently organized boycotts against him and other MLI participants, like attorney and author Rabia Chaudry, specifically for engaging directly with Israeli Jews.
“They’re trying to attack me and Rabia and make examples out of us,” Ali said. “So, what I’ve been told that, ‘We will make an example out of you and Rabia, and we will show people what happens when they do X, Y, and Z.'”
Ali went on to say that these organizers are also deeply bigoted against him and Rabia for their South Asian ethnicity.
“That is one of the critiques is, ‘Why are these South Asians talking about these issues?'” Ali said. “There are also anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that the only way Rabia and I have succeeded is by sucking on the teet of Jewish power. I’m not making any of this up.”
He continued to illustrate that there isn’t room for disagreement with the powers that be in the Muslim community on an issue as sensitive as this one.
“The level of engagement is so biased that people say, ‘You have to abandon MLI or else.’ And so we simply say, ‘We choose ‘or else.”” Ali said. “And because we simply disagree with them and do our own thing, we’ve been targeted to be made examples of, so everyone else is kept in line.”
ISNA gave an additional reason for disinviting Ali, saying in the letter that his “continued use of language referencing Allah [‘God’ in Arabic] in manners not benefitting His Majesty, whether in jest or otherwise” was “troubling.”
These activists recently seized upon comments Ali made during the New York City terrorist attack in October 2017 when an Uzbek national yelled “Allahu akbar [God is great]” before he killed eight people using his pickup truck. In the wake of the attack, Ali attempted to clarify the meaning of the phrase “Allahu akbar” and how it was hijacked from peaceful Muslim worshippers.
Allahu Akbar is Arabic for “God is Great.” Muslims use it in prayer & as expression of gratitude. Terrorists also hijack language and faith.
— Wajahat Ali (@WajahatAli) October 31, 2017
While the nature of explaining “Allahu akbar” wasn’t controversial, his subsequent joke about it rubbed a lot of Muslims the wrong way.
I’ve said Allahu Akbar after taking giant dumps.
— Wajahat Ali (@WajahatAli) October 31, 2017
“As a result of that tweet, that tweet became a lightning rod, galvanizing most of my critics, and just some haters, who used it as proof that I have to be completely removed from Muslim communities,” Ali said, even noting that some critics said he committed “kufr” or “denial of the truth.”
Ali was also accused of “kufr” when, in his Atlantic article, he used a metaphor about God with respect to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Because some of my people are literalists – or Drax from ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ — they do not appreciate metaphors or figures of language when I compared God to an absentee landowner who sold Abraham’s children a lemon, talking about the lack of spirituality in religion that often motivates extremism and violence in the Holy Land,” Ali explained. “They saw that as a literal statement and again said I committed disbelief and ‘kufr.'”
Whatever the excuse ISNA has given Ali, he’s determined to fight back against the status quo in the American Muslim community. He knows he can’t be silenced.
