After the Dutch: Now it is the French Ministers turn.

Society Religion & Philosophy
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Besides this article there is also news about the large muslim community in Latin America that is now under the microscope. Who wants to take a bet that within five years we have french lady Imams in french masjids?

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_7-10-2002_pg7_27
France warns Muslims against foreign radicalism

PARIS: France’s Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy warned the country’s Muslims to shun Islamic fundamentalism and religious manipulation from abroad and urged them to include women among their community’s leadership.

Sarkozy told imams (prayer leaders) at the Paris Grand Mosque that France would not tolerate Islamic radicals preaching to its five million-strong Muslim community, Europe’s largest.

“No one can accept that speech full of hate, violence and fundamentalism takes hold in our republic,” he said on Saturday. “Only foreign imams who respect our laws and social consensus are invited to share their knowledge and spirituality here.”

France’s Muslims, the second-largest religious community after Roman Catholics, have many mosques financed by Algeria, Morocco or Saudi Arabia and imams brought in from abroad because no schools exist to train them in France.

Paris has become increasingly concerned about fundamentalism after Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, was arrested as a September 11 co-conspirator in the United States and eight French men of Arab origin were caught last year fighting with the extremist Taliban in Afghanistan.

Anti-terrorist magistrates think Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network may have recruited Islamic radicals in France through underground groups in the Paris and Lyon areas.

Fundamentalism at the gate: Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Algerian-backed Grand Mosque, told Sarkozy French Muslims wanted a modern Islam for today’s world “as it really is and not as it appears in the apocalyptic nightmares of the kamikazes and bin Laden’s Taliban.”

“Fundamentalism, this dangerous political and extremist form (of Islam), has recently made dangerous advances right up to our own doors,” said Boubakeur, a noted moderate Muslim leader.

“Exploiting weaknesses and disarray, it has a considerable influence among our youth and in certain mosques thanks to its men and its means,” he said in an apparent reference to foreign imams and funds used to promote anti-Western views.

He also said he wanted to promote Muslim women in the “modern and vibrant French Islam” that was emerging here.

Sarkozy said Muslim women have a particular role to play.

“While women may not visit mosques frequently, they make up the majority of the faithful and are the ones who usually assure the transmission of the faith. That’s why I have proposed that they have a place in future representative bodies,” he said.

Sarkozy said last month he regularly had to refuse entry visas to foreign imams who spoke no French.

He was due to meet on Tuesday Prince Abdullah Turki, the Saudi-born secretary-general of the Mecca-based World Muslim League, suspected of spreading his kingdom’s puritanical Wahhabi Islam in the mosques the league finances around Europe and Asia.

Bin Laden, who was stripped of his Saudi citizenship in the early 1990s for criticising Riyadh, championed Wahhabi Islam among the Taliban who hosted him from 1996 until they were driven from power by US-led attacks in November 2001.

Sarkozy wanted to meet Turki, the main financier of mosques in France, “to tell him some truths and urge him to avoid any drift towards fundamentalism, a ministry aide told Reuters.

The interior minister is pressing French Muslims to form a representative council but divisions between mosques linked to Arab countries and others close to the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood have thwarted his efforts so far. —Reuters

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On the broader issue of what kind of message is presented from the podium, I agree whole-heartedly, that there should be some sense of balance.

Even here in US, sometimes, listening to the Friday sermons, I am appalled at the sort of hate-filled speeches which are allowed. Most of the time, these are foreign "visiting faculty" who have little clue about the religious sensitivities of living in a foreign land and will come and lamblast all things American. They will literally implore their audience to rise up in revolt. At one time, a dude from Egypt was saying "do you know where your tax dollars go? They go to Israel so it can kill more Palestinians. You should not give your dollars to this kaafir government!" And this was in one of the largest mosques in the area where more than 3,000 people attend the Friday prayers.

I was one of the many people who sent a complaint to the administrators, that they should atleast interview the visiting imam before allowing him the opportunity to come and say anything. Ideally, the speech should be approved by the management before it is delivered so that the management can be held liable for such statements. If any news-reporter had been there, and decided to report such statements, these kind of speeches will do enormous harm to muslims.

And the worse part is that these imams will come here, deliver their sermons and go back, and the local muslims are left to answer to charges of religious hate-mogering and isolationist practices.

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In the context of France, the culture has been leaning towards a more conservative approach from a past few decades. If they don't like the Jews or policies of Israel, they are also not very fond of redical Islam.

Regarding women, I am surprised that they are not encouraged to visit mosques (from what I could tell from the main stream Muslim mosques they could). I recall even the most conservative mosques in Peshawar let women pray & their used to be a big crowd on Friday prayers. Representation doesn't necessary means abolishing the principle of segregation that Islam preaches. They can be well represented in mosque & in the matters dealing with mosques & still hold the values of Purdah!

At our mosques, the women are not only regular in all prayers at the mosques but also are far more active than men in other activities, such as food camps, written religious research, tabligh (dawah) etc. They are also present at the shurah & mostly give a different perspective to the important contemporary issues discussed!

On a broader perspective, I agree with Faisal bhai. Maybe the communities need to start a religious school themselves in the western countries, rather than having to import Imams.

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Faisal, I completely agree with you. I have also witness similar events where the Imam gets carried away and I believe that he gets so emotional that he has no clue what he is going on about. However, our problem here is that some of the more hot headed ones are somewhat in control of the masjid agenda and there is a whispering of anti US talk. Sometimes I wonder if they are FBI recruits or what? But they sure act stupid.