Year: 2005

Current Affairs Shi'ism

A Muharram victory

islamoyankee

Oh boy! Was the US so confident of Allawi’s victory that they didn’t think what would happen if the Shi’i religious party won the elections? It’s not so much that they won, I think everyone but this administration saw them winning a plurality if not a majority, but it dawned on me today that they won the elections during Muharram. The first ten-days were when the Prophet’s grandson Husayn was tortured and killed. It’s one of the formative moments of Shi’ah identity and remains incredibly important for the Ithna’ashari, the type of Shi’ah in Iraq. The symbology of Imam Husayn…

Read More
Inter-faith

I Look Jewish, and other interesting facts [updated]

islamoyankee

Neither an Ashkenazim nor Sephardim be. Here’s an interesting article about the first South Asian to head a US synagogue. A short introduction to South Asian Jews as well. The Revealer has a good post called “Who’s a Jew?” It’s about a Muslim. My wife is a big fan of Ali and Nino and has been trying to get me to read it for a while. The question of authenticity is hard enough within a religious tradition, especially as different interpretations of the same faith come into contact. Then you throw in inter-faith issues and have people from outside any…

Read More
Religion

Oz-tralia

islamoyankee

So Jonathan and I were in Australia at around the same time in the summer of 2004. It sounds like were actually in the same cities at around the same times as well, but we never met up there. However, he was much better about posting his thoughts than I was. I wanted to pick up on his mention of Afghans (minor quibble, “Afghani” is an adjective, “Afghan” is a noun) in Australia. They have a long history in Oz, and the “new” Ghan rail line is named after them. There’s more under the fold, but it’s image heavy, and…

Read More
Weblogs

A Series of Unfortunate Events

islamoyankee

Hey folks. Sorry I’ve been MIA for so long. After my Thanksgiving message, my computer suffered a thermonuclear meltdown. Being a Mac, the problem as an unavoidable hardware failure. Fortunately, being a Mac, it was easy, although time-consuming, to recover my data. Said data also included all of my friend’s wedding pictures (I was photo dump during his wedding), as well as two chapters of my dissertation that were due. I managed to recover everything but the two most recent drafts of the dissertation. This situation lead to increased pressure on deadlines, then came finals and grading. During the holiday…

Read More
Inter-faith

Hope in Mecca

This article in IHT provides some encouraging news about the open debates taking place in Mecca during Hajj: The two-hour presentation "Mecca: The Cultural Capital of Islam" was dry, but things got rolling in the question and answer session in a way quintessentially Meccan. One by one, audience members – a surprising number of them women – came to the microphone with questions that few others would dare ask publicly. .ism," asked one woman. . "Why do we look only into the past and not to the future," another woman demanded. . The session soon grew into a raucous series…

Read More
Current Affairs

What kind of Allah…..

………is this that allows for such destruction?  Why did the MOST BENEFICIENT and the MOST MERCIFUL Creator will this Tsunami?  Interesting questions for us to reflect on.  What is the Islamic explanation for this disaster?  How do we as believers make sense of this event?Here are some interesting questions via Arts & Letters Daily: In the Telegraph: In temples, mosques, churches and synagogues across the globe, clerics are being called upon to explain: How could a benevolent God visit such horror on ordinary people? Traditionalists of diverse faiths described the destruction as part of god’s plan, proof of his power…

Read More