Muslims from Israel bring fresh views to Hub

NEWTON -- Al Qasemi College , which was founded in 1989 as the first institute of Islamic higher education in Israel, is trying to export revolutionary openness and liberalism to the wider Islamic world, leaders of the faculty told educators, Jewish leaders, and local Muslims during a four-day visit to the Boston area that ended yesterday.

Speaking at campuses, mosques, and the homes of Muslims, the Al Qasemi faculty said that it is time for Muslims to quit blaming others and examine their own responsibility for the troubles of Islamic civilization; time for Arab Israelis to call themselves Israelis, not Palestinians; and, above all, time for women to have full equality with men in the Muslim world.

All these assertions are considered radical, even incendiary, in much of the Arab Muslim world. But Mohammad Essawi , the president of the college, said such changes in thinking are needed to transform an education system in the Islamic world ``that is still in the 12th century and does not have an open mind."

``There is a huge opportunity to teach openness and pluralism in these societies," Essawi said yesterday.

Al Qasemi College was started as a school of Islamic law by members of Israel's Sufi community who, according to college director-general Muhamed Abu Much , were concerned that youths who were studying religion abroad were coming back with ideas that were ``not good for our community."

Enrollment in the school has increased steadily, from 40 students in 1989 to 1,600 students today. And it could be much larger if the school's administration wanted it to be, according to Essawi. The college accepts only about one in eight applicants.

Al Qasemi primarily educates teachers for Arab schools in Israel. It also trains Arab women for technology-based careers such as engineering that are difficult for them to pursue because of the expectations of the traditional communities in which the women are raised.

Essawi and 10 members of the Al Qasemi faculty spoke with faculty at Hebrew College and at Harvard University. They met Boston-area Muslims at Friday prayers at the mosque of Islamic Center of Boston , in Wayland, and at an organized discussion Saturday night at the Westwood home of a Muslim participant in the region's oldest Muslim-Jewish dialogue group.

The American Jewish Committee, which is a sponsor of the dialogue group, arranged the visitors' trip to the United States, which also included stops in Washington and New York.

``Some of our members asked very pointed questions about how horrible it must be to live in such a closed, undemocratic society as Israel," said Mahmoud Jafri , a cochairman of the dialogue group who was moderator of the Saturday night discussion. But the Israeli Arab academics ``were very positive. It is the first time our community has heard from Israeli Arabs who said `This is our country.' "

``It was a wonderful evening," Jafri said in a telephone interview yesterday. ``There are some good things happening in that part of the world that are not known, or do not get enough attention." He said some Boston-area Muslims are considering inviting the Al Qasemi group back for a more extensive public program, and sending a local delegation to Baqa el Gharbiya, Israel, where the college is located.

Dahlia Fadila , who teaches English literature at Al Qasemi, said in an interview yesterday that men and women on the faculty share a conviction, heightened by their exposure to Jewish Israeli society, that ``unless women are active and empowered, our society will not develop."

Fadila said ``there was initially strong opposition to the college's promotion of women to leadership positions, its relaxation of dress requirements for women, and its integration of modern courses of study with Islamic studies."

In recent years, though, ``more and more women want change" in their traditional roles in Arab society, she said, and ``now students are coming from communities where initially there was resistance."

Fadila said that the college has established relations with institutions of higher education in Egypt, Jordan, and the West Bank whose faculty participate in video conferences with Al Qasemi.

These faculty members do not come to Israel, she said, but schools in Jordan, Egypt, and Morocco have accepted Al Qasemi's graduates for advanced Islamic studies.

Abu Much, who is a specialist in Islamic law, said participants in the US tour wanted both to demonstrate the diversity of views within Islam and to comply with a passage in the Koran that ``orders Muslims to travel, to explore, to know other people and their ways of life."

Faculty at Hebrew College who met the visitors said they were impressed by the Israeli Arabs' views on Islam and their willingness to go against conventional thinking.

``The major change that we need" in Jewish-Muslim relations ``must start with what children are taught," said Rabbi Or Rose , instructor in rabbinic studies at Hebrew College.

``They are very brave to be doing this in the hotbed of the Middle East," he added.

He said faculty members at the Newton school are discussing the possibility that they and the school's rabbinical candidates might visit and study with the Israeli Muslim faculty when the candidates go to Israel before ordination.

Charles A. Radin can be reached at radin@globe.com.