islam doesn't speak, muslims do | "the ink of the scholar is worth more than the blood of the martyr" – Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)
Read this short blurb on Gadflyer about an article on Slate. We apparently had multiple opportunities to take out Zarqawi and didn’t. He had an opportunity to kill an American, and he did. He was also going to release biological weapons in London, which we weren’t going to stop. Fortunately, the London police did.
The Boston Globe – along with all local media – is running the story about the first same sex marriage licenses being given out in the People’s Republic of Cambridge. I am really happy to be living in this city and state! Since in Islam – marriage is a civil contract – there should not be issues (ha! ha ha!) with Muslims seeing anything wrong with gay marriage. I am not sure what the Holy Quran says about homosexuality – perhaps someone can drop me the 411. But I think we should let people choose who they want to be…
The discussions surrounding Abu Ghuraib are getting more and more depressing. Seymour Hersh’s article in this week’s New Yorker talks about how the torture was the result of orders from the Pentagon getting out of control. Newsweek is reporting President Bush signed the orders to commit torture. (TPM, Father Jake, Loose Democracy, Juan Cole on the same.) Colin Powell thinks the Arab world should be more outraged over the beheading of Nick Berg. He’s right. Why is this even an issue? There seems to be a race to be the most barbarous and callous people in the world. As an…
Demi posted something in comments that I really liked. Because it was so lengthy, and many respects quite independent of the original post, I asked her permission to move into the main area of the site. Here it is: I have been indulging in the same finger-pointing: at the president, at Rumsfeld, at any number of persons and entities. And it’s true, they are at fault. But I cannot shake the feeling that I am at fault as well, as is every individual that is part of a culture. Individuals comprise the culture, whether that culture gives rise to an…
Nick Berg’s father has been speaking out against the Department of Defense. It’s sad that he is criticizing the government, the entity that should have been protecting his son; it’s sad because the government should be seen as our protectors, particularly overseas. It doesn’t bode well for the country when the government is seen as contributing to American deaths internationally. The critique won’t get much traction, but I wanted to give my sympathies to the family for the loss of their son and their sense of betrayal. (Background pieces on Nick Berg in US Custody.) Aside: The video broadcast talking…
Via Joho, I found a 2nd grade class that maintains a blog. They’ve got a question that needs to be answered. The teacher who thought of this idea, using a blog to teach, should get teacher of the year. The concept is great, community teaching in a really organic form. The question is about dinosaurs and the kings of the jungles. Help them out and do your teaching duty for the day. My thoughts in their comments.
The following was a real event as re-told by Ali Asani, Professor of the Practice of of Indo-Muslim Languages and Culture, Harvard University. In professor Asani’s own words: “In 1947, in the midst of the many horrific communal riots and massacres unleased by the partition of the Subcontinent, a miracle occured at the railway station of Arifwala, a small town in the Punjab. A train carrying Hidu and Sikh refugees fleeing communal riots in Rawalpindi has stopped at the station on its way to the Indian border. At the station it was met by a mob of angry Muslims. Incited…
In a stunning turn of events in India, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s BJP party was upset by Mrs. Sonia Gandhi’s Congress Party. As an American Muslim of Indian descent, I have some strong feelings about India in general and about the communal violence between Hindus and Muslims in India over the past few years. Though the majority of Indian citizens are Hindu, people quickly forget that there are more Muslims in India than in Pakistan (approx 100 million). I believe that the ousted party bears some responsibility for the communcal violence, but the reason I am posting this information…
I was watching CNN last night and came across a Lou Dobbs interview with Fouad Ajami, Director, Middle East Studies Program, John Hopkins University. Dr. Ajami made a lot of sense to me. To get a sense of where he is coming from, here is a list of articles by or about Dr. Ajami: Iraq and the Arabs Future Rude Arab Awakening What the Arab World Is Watching [critique of Al-Jezeera] Lebanon Star [critique of Ajami’s attack on Al-Jezerra] During the interview, in which he was speaking about the Abu Ghuraib scandal and the brutal beheading of Nick Berg, Ajami…
Here’s a good article about an outreach event by a Muslim community for Milad un-Nabi. I love the line where terrorists are called “dissidents.” This is not an article I hate to love.