Film Review: The Mosque in Morgantown
by: Asma Uddin on July 17th, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Brittany Huckabee’s The Mosque in Morgantown is, on its face, the story of a battle in the local mosque, but more deeply, the story of a complex and infinitely diverse religious community grappling with its identity in modern-day America. On one side is Asra Nomani, a former Wall Street Journal correspondent who came face-to-face with extremism when her colleague and close friend, Daniel Pearl, was murdered in Pakistan. On the other side are, initially, the members of her local mosque, and eventually, moderate Muslims throughout the country.
Upon Asra’s return from Pakistan to her hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia, she believes she sees in her local mosque hints of the extremism she witnessed in Pakistan. Women are excluded from the main prayer hall and the mosque leader frequently makes statements of intolerance and distrust toward women, non-Muslims, and the West. Asra keeps careful notes of problematic statements made in the mosque sermons, some of which include, “a woman who loses her chastity is worthless,” and “Jews are the descendents of apes and pigs.”
Her campaign against this extremism puts the mosque in the middle of a media storm, a fact the mosque’s moderate contingency is highly irked by. Whereas these and other moderates throughout the country would normally have been her main allies, Asra’s reform methodology pits her against them.
As such, The Mosque in Morgantown explores the battle not between Asra and the purported “extremists” but between Asra and the moderates. While it is the conservative members of the mosque who petition to expel Asra from the mosque, it is her confrontations with the moderate members that define the so-called “trial” that she is placed on explicitly by the mosque and implicitly by the larger Muslim community.
Like all good documentaries, The Mosque in Morgantown not only takes the audience into a world they may not be familiar with, but also casts a spotlight on certain aspects of this world that may have otherwise been overlooked or taken for granted. As the movie follows Asra’s fight for women’s rights, it shows how, with each new battle, her activism evolves and at times becomes internally confused. Her protest goes from wanting to give women a space in the main prayer hall to wanting women to stand beside men in prayer and to lead mixed-gender prayers. Her struggle against conservatism becomes intertwined with her repugnance with extremism and she ends up conflating the two, explaining time and again that there is a “slippery slope” between intolerance and violence. Yet, as one of the conservative women from her mosque notes, what does extremism have to do with women led prayer?
Because she is convinced of this slippery slope, Asra feels that there is no room for what the moderates advocate: slow change based on diplomacy and compromise. Instead, she calls for and leads an all-out revolution, bringing the media into the fray and causing the community to feel exposed and ridiculed. While it is not clear if this was her intent, it appears to be the natural byproduct of her actions.
These and other problematic elements of Asra’s struggle are highlighted by the reactions she receives from moderate Muslims first in her mosque and then throughout the country. For the viewers, these responses raise questions related to effective reform tactics, the characters’ underlying motivations, and the proper use of terms such as “extremism” and “extremist”.
For example, in the film, Edina Lekovic points out during a confrontation with Asra that Asra’s sensationalist tactics are making it harder for female reformers to be taken seriously. Specifically, Asra’s focus on women leading Friday prayer allows misogynists in the community to dismiss reform efforts regarding more important and substantive issues such as female leadership and access to mosques.
Edina goes on to say that she cannot help but think that Asra’s activism is intricately linked with Asra wanting to sell her book, Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam. While Edina calls Asra’s sincerity into question, Asra’s other opponents undermine the form of her argument, stating that she unfairly clumps members of their community with the murderous extremists responsible for Pearl’s death.
Beneath these issues simmer even more complex ones: What is the true status of women in Islam? How should the Qur’an be interpreted? What is the connection between Islam and violence? Essentially – what is Islam? As Asra continuously pushes against the widely accepted boundaries of Islam, her opponents cannot help but wonder if Asra is out to redefine Islam entirely in her own terms.
And the Asra camp also seems to allude to this; as her mother and one of her staunchest supporters states during a heated meeting with the local mosque leadership, “This is Islam for you; it is not Islam for us.” Asra insists that it is not she who makes the rules; the gender equity and unconditional tolerance that she advocates for is at the heart of Islam. Yet even as she says this, she is troubled by the verses in the Qur’an that speak of beating wives, or fighting the Jews, and tries to reconcile her beliefs with the text by denying that it is the actual word of God and stating instead that it is a historical text.
While it may be true that the English translation is not the word of God, it is generally uncontested among all Muslims that the Arabic Qur’an is the direct word of God, unchanged throughout history. Human interpretation of the words, that is, the ways in which the words are actualized, is a distinctly human enterprise, but the words themselves are of Divine origin.
Even so, any interpretation should strive to remain true to the words of the Qur’an – the context and sub-context of the verses. If one does away entirely with the words and the framework within which they were revealed, then which part of Islam is one really left with?
And that is ultimately what Asra’s opponents are perplexed by. While many of them acknowledge the merit of her arguments, she seems at times to push too hard and too far. At the Islamic Center of Southern California – described in the film as the most progressive mosque in the country – one of the mosque leaders, Azmeralda Alfi, says to Asra, “You did not show respect to your people. You did not show respect to yourself. You didn’t respect anything.” Asra replies, “I respected God and I respected divine law.” This exchange highlights the central conflict, the point past which Asra and her opponents cannot seem to move: they feel that she is irreverent to the proper etiquette of Islam; she feels that by aspiring to broader ideals of tolerance and equality, she need not limit herself by traditional customs and rulings.
I find this fascinating, and I also find that there is a thread here of something that runs through Judaism and Christianity as well. It is this…What happens when Divine texts are taken so literally that there can be no wiggle-room for either updating the religion or a modern interpretation? I would make the argument that there has to be room for (particularly) these 3 religions to be able to adapt in spite of the long held notion (by the high-priests of each tribe) that the Devine texts are immutable.
I take note of the fact that Judaism, Christianity and Islam all came about by revelation…whereby God revealed Himself to men and directed these men to carry out His wishes. To Moses , to Jesus, to Mohammed…all of these men spoke of how the Devine Revelation changed them. This begs the question of: “Is it the purpose of each of these religions to try to put us in touch with God?” For if it is, we must, each of us, attempt to go out and try to let God reveal Himself to us. If it is not the purpose, then it is enough that we merely carry out the wishes of some religious hierarchy.
I take further note of the fact that none of the founders of these religions were particularly well educated men, so if you would make the argument that the Devine Texts require so much study that only the members of the religious hierarchy are capable of interpreting or understanding them, it begs this question…”What is more important, the actual experience of the religious revelation, or the description of it as told to you by someone else”? What the religious establishment thinks is obvious…anyone who claims that they have seen or experienced God is inevitably cast as a blasphemer.
Asra may have indeed ruffled a few feathers, but that does not mean she is necessarily wrong. We are indeed living in a time that is full of promise, and one of the promises is that…at long last…we may have a chance to redefine these 3 religions so that we can…at long last…be able to get along with each other. Many of the practitioners of these religions feel this, sadly…the leaders of these religions lag far behind.
I question Asra’s sincerity and that of the film. Why did they not make a film about the Progressive Mosque in Calif instead of the one in Virgina? If it were a positive potral of a Muslim the film would not be commercial vialable. Negative stereo types of Muslims sell. Asra benefits from this. When I go to the bookshelves of libraries and movies…its the same message. Her book is always in the Religion section of Barnes & Nobles, right next to the Koran.
As a Muslim American my experience is very different. My voice and millions like mine are not heard. When my Iman joined an interfaith group in ct one of the Evangelical clergy removed himself from the group because he did not want to be in a group that included Muslims.
When I attend book groups- I hear comments that are widely anti Islamic…they have all the books and movies and media giving them reason to be anti-slamic .(Muslims could only do wrong!)
There is no doubt that Asra’s may be expereincing all she claims at her local mosque however all over America in many houses of worship…there is no open arms to all. In our community when we did not like the local Mosque we created our own house of worship with a few families. We have created a rich and welcoming place for all. That is what America is about. There is a place for all of us. There are alot of great Imans that have great American Muslim voices who are looking for support and a place to help build positive insttitutions.
What I would love to see a movie(a challenge to Asra) where perhaps a person such as Asra creates the place she envisions…where her values are respected. There are plenty of Imans who are ready and looking for the opportunity to serve. Perhaps she can create a Progressive Mosque right there next to the one in Virginal( there are so many different ones of the Christian faith). In my small town there are 5 Jewish Houses of worship and they do not agree with each other! Many of the Jewish faith attend the Unitarian church! And when I do interfaith work,I do it outside of my town because I find these groups do not welcome a socially progressive Muslim(who does not fill the sterero types!) In fact I would believe that Tukum would not be so welcomed in my conservative town. Now is anyone making any movies about my Town?