HAhmed.com

Source: MLive.com (Thanks to Sulayman for the link)

Sherman Jackson has little use for decorative wall art.

There isn’t much need when nearly every inch of wall space in his corner office at the University of Michigan’s Thayer Building is covered with volumes of religious texts, Islamic law, and commentaries on theology.

On the wall just inside the door frame hangs a document representing what some are calling a watershed moment in Muslim American history, a reference that draws a reflective and immediate smile from Jackson.

Jackson was among 20 Muslim activists, academics, and spiritual leaders from around the state to recently sign a code of honor. They have pledged to promote unity and mutual respect among the religion’s different sects here while the bloody conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims continues to take its toll abroad.

“This is a wonderful achievement,” said Jackson, a Philadelphia native who converted from Christianity to Islam in the late 1970s. He is now an Islamic scholar and professor of East Asian studies at U-M.

“It’s just a start, but there was this sense of a growing need now for something like this, given what is going on in Iraq, to ensure that whatever happens in the Muslim world does not spill over into the American space in such a way that it would divide the Muslim community in America.”

Similar codes have been signed recently in California and other Muslim communities across the country.

Leaders from Muslim communities in southeast Michigan were already trying to foster better relations and interaction between Sunnis and Shiites locally when the sectarian tensions ignited more than a year ago into deadly violence nearly every day in Iraq.

The local tension was exacerbated when six

Detroit-area Shiite-owned businesses and mosques were vandalized shortly after many Shiites celebrated Saddam Hussein’s execution by taking to the streets of Dearborn in January, said Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Police are still investigating, but some within the Muslim community suspect angry Sunni followers were responsible, Walid said.

The hope is that the local code of conduct and similar codes will promote mutual understanding and provide a model for other parts of the world to follow.

“He’s part of a big step that should be a sign to Muslims internationally that there can be mutual recognition and respect of all our differences as Muslims,” Walid said. “There is a lot of misperception within our own community that needed to be cleared up.”

Sunnis and Shiites share the same core beliefs about the Quran and the Prophet Mohammad , but differ greatly on his rightful successor, Jackson said. Political and theological differences stemmed from there.

Jackson said the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan asked him to help draft a code that would meet religious standards and incorporate American values of tolerance and seizing opportunity.

It calls for restraint in takfir, the rough equivalent of excommunication in Islam, which can be issued informally.

“I see myself as having a role to play in terms of bringing my scholarship to bear on burning issues in my community,” Jackson said. “This is not an effort to bridge differences, or an attempt to obliterate a schism that has lasted 1,200 years. It’s to recognize that differences can be accommodated in the spirit of mutual respect.”

Art Aisner can be reached at aaisner@annarbornews.com or 734-994-6823.

Sherman Jackson

Age: 51.

Occupation: Professor of East Asian studies at the University of Michigan.

Home: Ann Arbor.

Family: Wife, Heather, and four children - Hassan, Shihab, Saphia and Niyyah.

Education: Doctorate; undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania.

How he relaxes: Watch movies, take a stroll, sit on the deck and listen to the birds.

Favorite movie: “Hombre.”

Last book read: “American Fascists,” by Chris Hedges.

Philosophy of life: “Keep on pushing.”