Related Posts

The Modern Muslim Arab Male

This is a decent article in the NYT about Arabs, specifically Muslims, and modernity. I’m saddened that they only focused on males, because there is another half of the population. Also, it seems like the issues they are investigating would benefit with a comparison as to what is happening in the US and how we are negotiating the same issues.

Contact MPAC to Express Your Concern about their Awarding of “My Name Is Khan”

Updated call from the original, incorrect one I had posted earlier: Dear Concerned Muslim American Community Member: As Salaamu Alaykum. In February of this year, a new Bollywood film, My Name is Khan, opened in U.S. theaters. Although it is claimed that the film promotes tolerance and understanding, My Name is Khan presents our diverse and dynamic American Muslim community through a “Good Muslim/Bad Muslim” lens that does an injustice to our community and reproduces racist stereotypes about African Americans. For a cogent review of the film, please read Su’ad Abdul Khabeer’s article “Khan Breaks New Stereotypes (but Reinforces Old…

Karen Armstrong Interview

She talks a lot about religion and politics in this particular piece. I think her history of the Sunni-Shi’ah political divide is a bit off. Arguably the first empires fighting about this were in the 11th century (Fatimids and Abbasids), but I would argue the political division goes back to the time of the Prophet. However, that doesn’t mean that they didn’t live well together. Karen Armstrong

One thought on “No theology needed to justify a crime”

  1. That’s a great article, and it brings up something I have said often in the past–the sadism that brings people to commit violent acts is prior to any religious or theological concept created to justify it. It’s not that religious people are violent, it’s that violent people have learned to hide behind religion.
    I’ve elaborated a bit on my own blog. Incidentally, have you been invited to the Progressive Faith Blog Con?

Comments are closed.