Related Posts

Schimmel and the Marsiya

Annemarie Schimmel was one of the greatest, if not the greatest, commentator on Islamic literatures writing in English. Her works are magisterial, and very diverse. I’ve discovered one of her articles on-line, and it’s about the marsiya tradition. Her translations are just beautiful. I wish they had also included the original texts.

Stand steadfast before God as witnesses for justice . . .

Even though categorization is a useful tool for analysis, and OBL is definitely a bad guy, I am curious to hear if people have any objections to the use of the term binladendism as described in this article in the Boston Globe by Abdul Cader Asmal.  I’ve heard some convicing arguments against the blanket use of the term Wahhabism and my sense is that binladenism is probably more accurate but flawed in its own ways.

Ben Kingsley is/was Muslim

No, really. The following article is in German, but he talks about his father being Ismaili and growing up in Zanzibar. http://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/artikel/202/24178/