The Company You Keep

All news outlets today in the US issued an apology for calling Muqtada as-Sadr a cleric. The lack of clerics in the Islamic tradition clearly makes such a title incorrect. In addition, as-Sadr has no official standing in the hierarchy of Ithna’ashari religious scholars, making any title inappropriate and granting him an unwarranted level of legitimacy. If only the press would bother learning to read. Rhetorical question: Can one write without knowing how to read?

Traditionally, Muslims read the Qur'an in its entirety over this time, in a section a day. The Qur'an is split into thirty sections, called juz', and one section is read each night.  This year is the 8th year I am inviting people to tweet the Qur’an for Ramadan. I will be tweeting @islamoyankee. To see how the call has (not) evolved, here are the six call outs: 2009 Windsor Star Article 2010 (despite the title, which says 2011) 2011 USA Today Article 2012 2013 Storify (including press stories) 2014 A piece I did on Immanent Frame   The Background [from the…

For those of you unaware, Dick Clarke is former head of counter-terrorism under the Clinton and Bush, Jr. administrations. He’s written a book analyzing the failures of both groups – not just Bush as has been widely reported – in dealing with Al-Qaeda. Unfortunately, I have not yet read the book, but this review is one of the least partisan ones I’ve read so far. It’s really chilling what we don’t know. I’ve often joked – as have others – that the color-coding scheme of terrorist alert is nothing more than a scam to get Bush re-elected. What if it’s…