A series of recent editorials and letters to the editor concerning controversial statements on the Al-Nur Dartmouth Muslim Student Association website have sparked a controversy over whether the student group should be subject to sanctions for placing offensive material on its website.
The strife began after a piece entitled "Preaching Hatred at Dartmouth" ran in the June 29 issue of The Dartmouth. The author, Ilya Feoktistov '06, described several passages found on Al-Nur's website that he deemed to be anti-Semitic. The passages included an inflammatory hadith -- one of the sayings of Muhammad that is sacred to Islam -- and commentary by a Pakistani Muslim religious authority on several hadiths.
Feoktistov discovered this material approximately one year ago while searching through Al-Nur's website. However, he did not take action until April when requests from Jewish students to use the Pavilion Dining Hall to celebrate Israeli Independence Day were denied, and a member of Al-Nur described Israeli independence as a "terrible tragedy" in a BlitzMail message that was later forwarded to Feoktistov.
"He viewed this day as a day of great tragedy, which I viewed as anti-Semitic." Feoktistov said. "It made me worry about anti-Semitism within Al-Nur, not just within their website."
Feoktistov's editorial concerned links to controversial passages on the Al-Nur site, including one which read: "The Messenger of Allah said, 'The Last Hour will not come until the Muslims fight against the Jews, until a Jew will hide himself behind a stone or a tree, and the stone or the tree will say: 'O Muslim, there is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him.'"
Al-Nur removed the material in question quickly after Feoktistov's editorial was published. In addition, Sajid Huq '04 issued a published apology on behalf of Al-Nur.
"The offensive views are resoundingly dissonant with the views held by Muslim students on this campus," Huq wrote, "and we urge people to exercise good judgment if they ever encounter hateful material under the umbrella of Islam, which unfortunately is not hard to run into."
Former Al-Nur president Adil Ahmad '05, said that the presence of the controversial material on the site was a matter of neglect. However, Ahmad questioned Feoktistov's concerns that the material reflected a deeper enmity of Jews within the Al-Nur organization.
"We didn't read the commentaries," said Ahmad, who serves as the webmaster for Al-Nur's website. "If you remove the context, [the passages] seem very offensive." Ahmad went on to explain that the particular hadith dealt with a "war with a tribe of Jews 1,400 years back," and the passage is "specific to that war only."
Like Ahmad, Al-Nur President Dale Correa '06 argued that Al-Nur's site did not reflect anti-Semitic beliefs.
"We don't share those anti-Semitic views at all," Correa said. "They're not our opinions; they're something we put up for research purposes only."
Correa also said that Al-Nur has decided to dismantle its entire website, and that the future site will include only basic information about the group and possibly links to the Koran and websites for national Muslim organizations.
Feoktistov, however, feels that Al-Nur should be subject to disciplinary action from the College for allowing such material on their website.
Concerning these sanctions, Feoktistov said he initially did not support punishing Al-Nur; however, reading a recent letter by Joe Asch '79 changed his mind.
"Why shouldn't Al-Nur be sanctioned for offensive comments like inciting murder?" Feoktistov said.
Asch's letter, to which Feoktistov was referring, cited sanctions that Zeta Psi and Psi Upsilon fraternities received in the past for similar issues dealing with offensive speech.
Correa disagreed with Feoktistov with regard to sanctions. "I don't feel it's necessary," she said. "It was an oversight to begin with."
College Chaplain Richard Crocker also did not feel sanctions were necessary. "I don't think that it was intentionally malicious," he said. Crocker noted that the College has no speech codes while also stating that "In my judgment, this material is not particularly relevant to its purpose."
Potential sanctions against Al-Nur could be dealt with through the Office of Pluralism and Leadership.
Dean Tommy Lee Woon was not available to speak about the issue.
