Photo: The Eyes See

The next few weeks promise to be very exciting here at islamicate. This weekend is the Islam in America Conference at Harvard. I’ll be there and trying to do daily updates on the proceedings of the conference. I’m also going to see if I can get some of the panelists to sit down with me and share some more detailed thoughts, if not guest-post with us. I’ve also been conspiring with Haroon of Avari-Nameh fame to see if we can discuss some topics in the open between our blogs. I’m a big fan of the old school way of Islamic…

This article is a nice discussion of what’s at stake in the education process in Pakistan, particularly for women. I particularly like the closing paragraph, cliché as it is: we cannot afford to allow a minority to hold a majority at ransom. We just cannot afford to allow any individuals or any groups to derail the present efforts in the education sector or give foreign agencies working in this field any reason to pull out.

I’m placing this here because I think it has strong resonances with the Muslim thinking on the concept of charity. I’ll post a similar one for Muslims shortly. Eight Rungs of the Giving Ladder: The concept of giving anonymously without knowing the recipient can be traced back to ancient Israel. Beggars would regularly congregate next to a wall of a courtyard and donors, being aware of this, would face the opposite direction and toss coins over the shoulders in the direction of the wall. Therefore, the recipients of the charity would not feel ashamed or indebted to the giver. Maimonides,…