Abdullah Drury: Islamic federation milestone a good time for soul-searching

This year the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand has celebrated 30 years of existence. When it began in 1979 the Muslim minority here consisted of only 2000.

It has grown dramatically since then, due almost entirely to immigration, to more than 36,000 at the last Census count in 2006 and possibly more than 40,000 today.

This diverse community encompasses more than 50 different nationalities, several languages and races, and many different classes - immigrants, refugees and even local converts to the faith.

However, as in 1979, the Muslim minority remains distinctly heterogeneous with no single ethnic component or social group constituting an overall majority. As a result there is no pronounced common cultural psyche or deeper indigenous traditions.

The federation of 1979, with which Mazhar Krasniqi, Hajji Abdul Rahim Rasheed, Dr Ashraf Choudhary and others hoped to establish a national Muslim minority organisation, presented unique challenges.

It was formally set up when Krasniqi, of Panmure, was appointed the first president.

Regional Muslim community leaders from Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington had had two meetings in 1978, including one at Choudhary's home in Palmerston North.

The three registered Muslim Associations existing at the time all agreed there was an urgent need to create a nationwide Islamic body to augment and co-ordinate the affairs of the wider Muslim community - especially with regard to the sensitive halal meat issue with the freezing works.

Over 30 years the federation has had several notable achievements. The most lasting was the letter of recognition from Hajji Muhammed Ali Harakan, General-Secretary of the Saudi-based Muslim World League.

In 1980, Harakan formally authorised Krasniqi to issue certificates for halal meat.

Krasniqi used this authorisation to negotiate the first federation halal meat contract with the Meat Producers Board in 1984. At first this deal was worth $60,000 a year but the current contract with the meat industry is now about half a million dollars.

This sum covers federation expenses, activities and events, overseas visitors, and provides the local Muslim community with a strong measure of financial independence from overseas sources and donors.

Perhaps the next most important long-term achievement was establishing ties with the Organisation for Islamic Conferences, a global Muslim organisation representing Islamic countries and Muslim minorities which has a permanent delegation to the United Nations. In 1988, the then OIC Secretary-General Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada visited New Zealand for a forum to raise a positive profile of the country internationally.

Another significant milestone for the New Zealand Islamic federation been establishing a regular Eid celebration at Parliament since 2005. Nothing better demonstrates the common desire of local Muslim leaders to "fit in" peacefully here than this urge to share this important Islamic festivity with the wider non-Muslim community.

This desire was marked when federation leaders were the first local Muslims to receive formal Government honours in Wellington.

In 2002 former federation presidents Hajji Abdul Rahim Rasheed and Dr Khalid Sandhu received medals from the Governor-General, as did Krasniqi in 2003.

However, federation leaders have made mistakes - not the least an assumption that they automatically hold a moral mandate to represent all New Zealand Muslims.

Islam is a complex socio-religious phenomenon depending upon several subjective factors, especially with regard to who is designating what and why.

Even within the comparatively small Muslim minority the broad spectrum includes principled (if incipient) factionalism based on diverse theological and epistemological paradigms, differing interpretations and understandings of Islamic law in non-Muslim lands. It also includes a sometimes bewildering variety of theoretical (and almost ideological) critiques. Sunni, Shiite, Miladi, Tablighi Jamat, Qadiani - all have their champions, and critics, inside the New Zealand Muslim community. This is perhaps best demonstrated by the growing disenchantment with the federation by some local Muslims, markedly in Auckland.

This especially applies to those actively involved in Muslim organisations outside the federation framework providing important community services, such as the Islamic Education Trust, which runs the only two Muslim educational facilities in this country.

Genuine enthusiasm for the federation, apart from paid staff and the executive committee, is hard to find. If the federation is to stay as the primary Islamic religious minority institution it urgently needs to prioritise its goals.

* Abdullah Drury is the author of Islam In New Zealand: The First Mosque.