/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/CULTURE-JAPAN: Interest in Islam Rising as Muslims Worry About Labelling

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Oct 30 2001 (IPS) - On Fridays, Tokyo’s largest mosque in Shibuya ward, fills with people in prayer. They file in quietly, keeping up a practice that the tiny community of Muslims in a largely homogenous society that combines Buddhism and its Shinto faith, has followed for years.

Muslims in Japan — there are some 100,000 non-Japanese Muslims who have come as immigrants or workers and support groups say some 200 Japanese families have converted to Islam — also trying to ignore the recent media scrutiny and stepped-up security against them following the terrorist attacks in the United States on Sep. 11.

A Pakistani student, waiting in line to get into the mosque, says he cannot help but worry about his status in Japan after the attacks. “The atmosphere is very negative against us. I want to be able to finish my engineering degree in peace,” he explains, declining to give his name.

“People look at us and say half-jokingly, ‘are you linked to the bombing?’,” says a Muslim student attending Kyoto University, who also asked not to be named. He says his beard also makes him easy target for ridicule.

Still, the U.S. attacks and the resulting bombing raids against Afghanistan since Oct. 7 have also sparked a renewed interest in Islam here in this country of more than 126 million people.

Japanese bookstores are currently loaded with books about Islam and the Arab world. While most of the literature are translations of books already in America, publishers report that books on the culture and society of the Muslim world by Japanese writers are also selling well.

The book ‘Terrorism and the Religious War with the World’ by Japanese writer Sho Takahashi is a bestseller these days. The book goes into a detailed analysis on the history of terrorism and the relationship between U.S. policy and Osama bin Laden, which Washington and its allies accuse of masterminding the September attack that killed more than 5,000 people.

“The books are selling well because the Japanese are very keen to understand more what is happening in the Arab world. This terrorist bombing is the catalyst for the newborn interest,” says Mimasaki Higuchi, spokesman for the Japan Muslim Association.

According to Higuchi, who converted to Islam after spending time in Egypt in his youth, a growing number of Japanese are interested interested in the religion.

The Japan Muslim Association, which comprises the largest number of Japanese Muslims and has been operating since the end of World War II before being officially launched in 1968, holds seminars and workshops on Islam. Many in the Japanese audience are fascinated by the culture and religion, reports Higuchi.

After all, he explains: “There are many similarities with the Japanese culture such as the deep respect shown to elders, the respect for being able to take hardship, which are deeply engrossed in the Japanese ‘samurai’ culture.”

Mohamed Faiz, a Pakistani Muslim who teaches Islam to Japanese, says that in his experience, Japanese who get into Islam do so because it helps them find that part of themselves that can address their inner anxieties. He recalls a 28-year-old Japanese student who said he felt Islam answered many of his questions about the birth of the universe.

Other Japanese Muslims say the increased international focus on Islam has increased their devotion to it.

“Since the attack, my devotion to my faith has only got stronger,” says 28-year-old Nagai Hafumi, who works for the Japan Muslim Association and whose mother is Indonesian and father Japanese. “This is because I can sense the animosity against us with more media reports linking Islam with terrorism.”

The Japanese government, like many other countries, has also stepped up security after the September attacks. Police have also tightened their watch on men from Islamic countries might be overstaying their visas.

Two weeks ago, the government reported that 12 foreign Islamic extremists, mainly from Pakistan, may have entered Japan before the terrorist attack in the United States, touching off a wave of heavy security at airports and stations by both police and immigration officials.

In its white paper released in October, the National Police Agency says that “Islamic extremists are spreading worldwide” and describes them as “taking action such as suicide bombings involving citizens” and calls for the “strong need for police to take anti-terrorism measures by improving the system of information gathering”.

Clearly, Higuchi explains, “The terrorist attack in Washington and its link to Osama bin Laden has dealt a terrible blow to our movement to build trust and friendship with the Japanese public.”

“The loss of Japanese lives in New York as a result of the terrorist bombing have hardened the public feeling against Islam” domestically, he adds. “With the media playing up the funerals of the Japanese killed and showing scary pictures of Muslims protesting against the U.S. bombing, it is going to be an uphill struggle to win support and understanding in Japan again.”

But while there there have been incidents that apparently show suspicion and unease — a woman was arrested in May for shredding copies of the Koran and dumping the scraps of paper in front of the lot of a Pakistani used-car salesman — some say they have not felt discrimination here.

Nagai, who is married to a Malaysian Muslim, says she has not faced any direct discrimination in Japan and will bring up her children as Muslim.

“Despite the backlash, I have confidence we are being accepted by other Japanese. People are trying hard to get to know our faith these days,” she says. She adds thought that the scarf she wears to cover her head sometimes prompt people to stare at her.

The influx of people from Asia in the past two decades during Japan’s economic bubble, especially from mainly Muslim countries such as Indonesia, Pakistan and Iran, has seen a gradual increase in followers of Islam, and encouraged efforts to gain public understanding.

But some worry that the inroads they have made in recent years may be undercut by the tendency to stereotype Muslims, even as many Muslims along with Japanese feel dismayed over the civilian toll of the U.S.-led bombing against Afghanistan. Indeed, Higuchi explains, the current war is propagating an image of “manic Muslims who are violent and beyond reason”.

Japan’s small Muslim community has not been immune from the debates going on in many communities in the region.

Thirty-five year old Selim Yucel Gulec, vice director of Camii, the biggest mosque in Tokyo, recently issued a statement saying terrorism was nothing less than a crime against humanity. It is of the utmost importance to distance the link to Muslims, he explained, adding that it is crucial to show that the attacks are not helping Muslim people and has nothing to do with Islam.

An Islamic group in Toshima ward in Tokyo also quickly circulated a statement to its followers attending prayers not to argue with those who use terror attacks to harass them.