A Boston Globe op-ed and the variety and flexibility of shari’ah. It’s not what it’s called, it’s what it says.
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Nobody likes Jews or Muslims [Updated]
Isn’t that reason enough for us to get along? New poll says anti-semitism and islamophobia on the rise. Other interesting tidbits from the poll: Muslims are worried about Muslim extremism. We don’t like it either. Why don’t people understand that? The Muslims most worried about Islamic extremism are countries that are dealing with … Islamic extremism and a growing OBL fan club. Finally, look at the poll. Muslims don’t approve of suicide bombing. [Update]: The complete report can be found here.
The Mahdi
Father Jake had a question regarding the Mahdi and the use of the name “Mahdi Army” by Muqtada as-Sadr. He’s gone out and done a fair amount of research, and I wanted to add my two cents. From a theological perspective, the idea of the Mahdi is incredibly ill-defined, because the idea of the end days are ill-defined in the Qur’an. While we have a sense that the mountains will crumble, stars will fall from the sky and the sky itself will tear, there is no equivalent to the Book of Revelations in the Qur’an. (For a wonderful discussion of…
Young Russians in search of faith are turning to Islam
Young Russians in search of faith are turning to Islam. But Sarachev’s forebears didn’t practice Islam the way he understands it today. Over a millennium, Tatars had developed a rich and complicated theology, comfortable with rational thought and mindful of the need to coexist with the Christian Russians. In Kazan, Tatarstan’s capital, the religious establishment endeavors to carry on that tradition today. But Soviet hostility to religion left most Tatars with only a perfunctory sense of their own Muslim inheritance. Growing up, Sarachev remembers, religion meant grandparents and holidays, and little else. Yet even then, just after the collapse of…