More on Saudi gender Oxymorons

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…

A Journey From Islam to Same-Sex Marriage – NYTimes.com. Ms. Khan, a Puerto Rican grandmother from Brooklyn, married her longtime girlfriend, Mersedita Sanchez, 45, on Sunday. The moment had particular resonance, Ms. Khan said, as she had converted to Islam more than 20 years ago after marrying a Pakistani man, and had been wearing a hijab and praying several times a day.

Multiplicity and Diversity Are the Future of Islam in America. The idea of writing about the future of Islam in America is more than daunting. At nearly 2 percent of the U.S. population, covering all fifty states, with histories stretching back hundreds of years, and representing nearly every Muslim community in the world, there does not seem to be a unified future. And that there is no one future is in fact a blessing and a potential, which perhaps should be the future to be celebrated.