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PAMF

Stands for Punk A$$ Mo Fo. I think a better term than hoodlums in this case. Martijn always has such interesting posts. However, on the issue of counter-identity, isn’t that essentially OBL’s point? He hates women, so he’s a man. He hates the “West,” so he’s an Arab. He hates Christians and Jews, so he’s a “Muslim.” A little more seriously, hasn’t he simply adopted Islam as an oppositional identity? Isn’t he more aligned with Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam than with the Hanbali school? For OBL, it seems Islam is what others are not, and his association with Taliban,…

Ismail Serageldin Profile

The Saturday Profile – Ismail Serageldin Seeks an Arab Age of Reason – Biography – NYTimes.com. And one of his core messages, aimed at his own community, is that Muslim societies today need to learn from Muslim leaders of the past, like Ibn al-Nafis, the 13th-century religious scholar, philosopher and scientist who called for tolerance in hearing out opposing views.  “How different these enlightened voices from the past sound compared to the frenetic ranting and condemnations of everything that is new and different that we see and hear everywhere in the Arab and Muslim worlds today,” he wrote in one…

I do run, run, run; I do run, run, run

Name the country with the following traits: A female Olympian with medal hopes in marksmanship. Queen – the band with an openly gay lead singer – is highly popular. Has a very successful family planning program. Allows abortion – albeit in limited circumstances. Transsexuals are accepted as part of society. Hopefully the first thought that came to your mind was an Islamic state described as fundamentalist. A state where women are supposed to wear hijab and the state is theocratic. Perhaps a state that is part of the Axis of Evil, and has had no diplomatic relations with the US…