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The Beginning of the End

The October 2006 issue of Vanity Fair contains two important articles, which are worth reading: Empire Falls, by Niall Ferguson, and Under Egypt’s Volcano, by Scott Anderson. In Empire Falls, Fergusson uses historian Edward Gibbon’s theories on the decline and fall of Rome to make an interesting, if not convincing, case for the same state of conditions currently in play in the West. Gibbon’s blamed Rome’s decline on external military overreach, internal corruption, social decadence, religious transformation, and barbarian invasion. Fergusson counters with the War on Terror, the cult of personality, superficiality, reality TV, cultural decline, immigration, and the rise…

Phear of Fobias [Updated]

Today Yahoo! News is reporting about the number of religious attacks made against Jews and Muslims in 2002. According to the FBI, the number of attacks against Jews greatly outnumbered those against Muslims. More telling are the numbers from 2001, where attacks against Jews outnumbered attacks against Muslims almost 2-1. Now, there very good reasons as to why the numbers of attacks against Muslims might be depressed, particularly in 2001 (see the DRUM website for an immigration angle). However, I still find the numbers telling. Judeophobia and Islamophobia spring from the same well [see Ali Asani’s excellent speech on the…

The Types of Articles I Hate to Love

I’m a Muslim. Surprise. Quite happy to be one. Like my islam. So, whenever I see a positive article on Islam or Muslims, especially in these times, I feel the requite rush of pleasure. Then I think about the article, and realize that more often than not it attempts to divide “good” Muslims – the subject of the article – from “bad” Muslims – the ones you normally read about. In many ways, it is a failure on our parts, as Muslims, to take responsibility for the acts of our brethren. Some acts are reprehensible, but to deny the fact…