INTERVIEW WITH IMAD A. AHMAD
By Ejaz Akram

(President, Minaret of Freedom) is an internationally known interdisciplinary scientist, author of Signs in the Heavens: A Muslim Astronomer's Perspective on Religion and Science, and Islam and the Discovery of Freedom. He teaches courses on social change and on Religion & Progress at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, and the University of Maryland.
	Imad A. Ahmad,

Ejaz (E): What is the distinction between Public and Private life? How important is it to know this distinction? What are the thresholds of public and private lives? Where does one stop and the other one starts?
Imad A. Ahmad (IA): In America a distinction is made between public life and private life, but it has somewhat fuzzy borders. Most things can be classified as one or the other. For example, it is very clear that if one is involved in politics, large-scale corporate enterprise or any civic activists in the society, is considered to be public life. On the other hand what goes on inside the household is clearly considered private life. But there are various areas where it is disputed, and different people have different opinions of whether what we are talking about public or private life. For example, it had been considered that small private voluntary associations, like clubs were private matters but I think increasingly people are beginning to question whether this is truly private.
Recently there was a similar case regarding the boy scouts. Its not a small club, it's a rather big club which was always considered as a private club. A recent court ruling has rendered it a public club! Therefore, now it is subject to laws that regulate the public behavior. Consequently, one of the conditions for being a member of that club was belief in God, cannot be a condition anymore, because the public arena is supposedly secular.
As regards to sexuality, sexual relations between a man and a woman are considered private, but if someone goes to a prostitute, it is considered public. For those who have sexual relations outside of marriage cannot be considered a private matter, but cannot be adequately considered public either.
Small businesses were traditionally accorded the same kind of respect as private entities, but not anymore. Now it is only the 'family businesses' that have the right to exist as a private entity, as long as all the workers are within the family. But I wouldn't be surprised it that gets challenged soon and becomes a public matter.
There is absolute right of privacy in Islam, whereas in America [and other Western countries] it is a debated issue. It is not an enumerated right in their constitutions. And therefore, those who believe that it is a right, defend it as an un-enumerated right, while others totally deny its existence.
Another interesting major legal case was regarding contraception. If someone uses contraception, is it a private matter or a public matter? What one does in a household is clearly a private matter, but if you buy the contraceptive in a store, it becomes a public matter. So, at that time the courts ruled that states that try to regulate contraception were invading the right of privacy, but some scholars still challenge that idea.
E: To someone like yourself, who is dedicated to the idea of freedom, does it seem that the contemporary western societies that talk so loudly about individual's rights and human rights, give less concessions on what is private, compared to what is minimally acceptable in Islam?
IA: Yes. It is because of the different views towards the issue of law. In Islam the law is God-given and the right of privacy is a sacred right, which must not be infringed upon. In America, for example, it is disputed. The natural law advocates are somewhat similar to the Islamic position. But then you see that the Medieval Christian advocates of natural law like Thomas Aquinas were directly under intellectual influence of the Muslims.
According to this concept, there are certain rights, (as in Jeffersonian thought) that are inalienable rights given to man, by 'the nature and nature's God'. There are some people who believe in natural rights and that privacy may be one of them. But there are many people in the West, who do not believe in natural rights at all. And they would say, rights are whatever the societies have agreed to. For the believers of democracy, whatever the people vote for, is what may constitute as rights. In either case, they think that it is an arbitrary thing. The 'natural law people' would contend that it is not arbitrary, it is in the nature of man to have these rights. If you destroy these rights, man cannot function.
E: What do you think about the organization of 'public space' and its impact on social life, especially in the case of Muslim women? Do you think that it poses a difficult challenge to Muslims?
IA: I think it is a very important issue. First of all, you have to see how the Muslims dealt with this issue of public and private spaces. Muslims are more aware of these distinctions. It is quite evidently reflected in their architecture. A Muslim home, for example, faces inwards rather than outwards, whereas most western houses are exposed outwards. It raises important questions. I'll give you an examplE: Currently, I am the president of the local citizens' association here in Bethesda, Maryland. I just got a phone call from a lady who wanted to know if the citizen's association would mediate between her and her neighbor. I asked her, "regarding what". She replied, "regarding and eye-sore on the neighbor's property".
E: I beg your pardon, what is an "eye-sore"?
IA: Something that you find ugly on a neighbor's property. So, I asked her what is that you find so ugly on his property. She said it was some kind of child's playhouse or a doghouse or something… and it is so ugly and she doesn't want to have to look at it. The eye-sore was clearly on a private property and not public, therefore according to the American law, nothing could be done about it. If the space was laid in a Muslim society, no question of this nature could arise, because if there is anything of this sort, it would be contained inside the house and no one would know about it and feel the need of an arbitrator to come out and mediate the dispute.
E: Most of the religious and civic organizations that make up the civil society, lie in this domain, and thus the question whether the civil society is truly public or private becomes relevant. My understanding warrants that the realm of the state constitutes the public arena, whereas the realm of the civil society, mostly a private one. By 'civil society' I mean the institutions that lie in between the state and the unit of family.
IA: Ah! That is a very important question. However, I must add to that view of civil society that instead of three spheres (family, civil society and the state) there are four spheres. There is the state, the private sphere (family), civil society and the commercial society.
E: What distinguishes the civil society from the commercial society?
IA: The distinction between the civil society and commercial society is that the latter is a for-profit society whereas the former is a non-profit society. The overriding objective in civil society is not subservient to profit making activities and they can still be successful and viable organization even if they break even, or sometimes, confront a financial loss. This would not be the case with commercial society. The civil society in this configuration should be a private matter and not a public one.
And finally I must add that in America where the idea of public and private was more mature than other Western societies (because of its emphasis on religious freedom and liberty), it was never a legal issue. However, it is beginning to be a legal issue with the churches these days.
E: Is the church public or a private institution?
IA: Church used to be a private institution, only for those people who belong to the denomination of that church. But now, the church is beginning to be seen as a public place. This leads to a further retraction of the private sphere!
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act has also confronted this problem. For example, if the church is classified as a historic site, but it is still alive and operational, do we classify it as a private property or a public property? This raises the question whether worship is more important, or whether the church more important merely as part of the landscape? The Supreme Court ruled that the church fell in the public sphere and thus could not expand even if it wanted to! This was a very serious setback for the freedom of religion in America.
The only time the state says it will get involved is when the outside public is affected by a private entity. But we even don't know that for sure anymore, because the state does get involved in family affairs in case of child abuse or the battery of women. The state's presumption is that family matters are private matters, however, it will get involved if it wants to.

Ejaz Akram is the Editor for the political section of the Global Examiner. He is also working on a Ph.D. in International Relations at the Catholic University of America, Washington DC . For feedback, e-mail editor at ejaz@islam-online.net

Debate