Month: July 2004

Current Affairs

Hee-haw [updated]

islamoyankee

I was on a plane so I missed Barack Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), but I heard it was brilliant. I caught part of Al Sharpton’s last night, and all of John Edwards. Edwards is probably going to get the most press coverage, so I want to mention part of Sharpton’s. Favorite section of the evening: You [George Bush] said the Republican Party was the party of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. It is true that Mr. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, after which there was a commitment to give 40 acres and a mule. … We didn’t…

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Shi'ism

Are Ismailis Muslim?

Interesting article in Canada’s Globe and Mail Newspaper about the first Muslim woman elected to the Canadian Federal Parliament. Only problem is that she is an Ismaili Muslim – and both traditional Muslim organizations and the Canadian media have gone ahead and completely ignored this momentous achievement in democracy and pluralisim in Canada. Sheesh. Here are some choice quotes by the author: One can perhaps understand the media not covering this development. Maybe it was simply an innocent oversight. How do we explain the reaction of traditional Muslim organizations that refused to acknowledge Ms. Ratansi’s accomplishment? From the Canadian Islamic…

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Current Affairs

ISIM

Ghostdog

The International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World [ISIM] conducts and promotes interdisciplinary research on social, political, cultural, and intellectual trends and movements in contemporary Muslim societies and communities. The ISIM was inaugurated in 1998 and is based in Leiden, The Netherlands. ISIM has just published its June 2004 Newsletter 14 in print format and online. As usual, it is full of interesting articles, commentary, and reviews. Issue 14 includes: [download newsletter 14, 1.9MB] Martyrdom * A Culture of Righteousness and Martyrdom / Elliot Colla * Suicide Attacks: Life as a Weapon / Riaz Hassan * Martyrdom and…

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Current Affairs Television

Action Alert

islamoyankee

Following email was sent to me by Taal (who has yet to do a direct post here, hint). Don’t have enough bandwidth right now to view the trailer directly, but thought this was interesting enough to share. ——– Dear Friends, We hope that you’re doing well. We’ve never really been the type to forward or sign online petitions or write mass emails. But we felt compelled to tell you about something that has deeply concerned us. Recently, we sat in a theater to watch Spiderman 2 and were shocked to see a trailer for an upcoming TNT program called ‘The…

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Weblogs

A New York Yankee in an Oz-tralian Court

islamoyankee

Much to blog about in the news, including what John Edwards as VP might mean for democracy in America and the return of rights to Americans. Unfortunately, or fortunately, this Yankee is touring Australia right now. I’ll have some mosque pictures up, and hopefully some interesting information about Muslims Down Under, but other than that, I’ll be on the DL for a couple of weeks.

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Current Affairs

Independence Day

islamoyankee

Happy 4th of July! 228 years old. Obligatory reading today are both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the US. There’s also a great op-ed in today’s New York Times talking about the relevance of the Constitution to today’s America. Current favorite president: FDR. Read something about his vision of America. Always remember Lincoln and what he had to say. Of course, now we are talking about a new type of slavery, a mental one. Where is our Thomas Paine?

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Current Affairs Religion

It’s amazing what turns up

islamoyankee

I went searching for an article entitled “Counterterrorism at Miami Airport” by Ali Mazrui, and found it at Swahili On-line (asante sana). It was attached to an article about Islam in East Africa. Both are worth a read. The link is here. I like Dr. Mazrui’s writings quite a bit because he treats Islam as part of the African cultural landscape, rather than something foreign that can be separated out and potentially removed.

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Religion

Islamic Extremisim

Haroon over at Avari-Nameh has posted a great piece on the current (or not so current) bouts of extremisim in Islam. Here is a blurb from the end of the piece: “Muslims must consider their reactions to present-day occurrences with a view to the past and also to the future, to see that, despite claims of resisting American or Israeli aggression, radicalism is not likely to help the Muslim community in any way. Radical Islam desires the subjugation of all competitors – no policies or procedures except shari‘ah, as imagined by activists with brittle education but plenty arrogance. Their immanent…

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