Year: 2007

Conferences Religion Web/Tech

SXSW 2007 – Ghost in the Machine

islamoyankee

So, I did my first South by SouthWest this year. Not my last, I hope, but not running back either. Was on a panel called Ghost in the Machine: Spirituality Online. The festival itself has 3 parts, film, music, and interactive, which is where our panel was. Very tech heavy, very interesting, but a bit out of my league. Nonetheless, everyone is very friendly, people wanted to learn and to talk, and overall it was a great experience. On the panel were: James McNally – moderator – Consolation Champs Rachel Barenblat – Velveteen Rabbi (SXSW post) Keven Lawver – UltraNormal…

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Art Science

Muslims and Quasicrystalline Structures

islamoyankee

Muslims had it 500 years before the West! Woo hoo! Story here and here. So what? It should sadden us that the doors of communication have been closed or filtered for so long that this knowledge wasn’t available earlier. It’s more a reflection of the mindset we have of each other that a comment on how intelligent Muslims may have once been. (Although that is how the story is framed, which makes me sad that the stereotypes persist and keep us all stupid.) Technorati Tags: Islamic Architecture, Math

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Media

View From a Grain of Sand: A film about Afghan Women

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View From A Grain of Sand reveals how Afghani women have had their rights stripped from them over the last 25 years – and their ongoing battle to (re)gain the most basic human rights. Nanji shot the film over a period of three years in the sprawling refugee camps of northwestern Pakistan and in the war-torn city of Kabul. Through a two-year long process of editing, additional shooting and archival research, she worked to locate the personal stories of the women she met within the larger context of international interference and war in the Middle East and the rise of…

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Books Media Reading Lists

Reading List: Intro to Islam

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What would an introductory reading list on Islam look like? Not for an academic audience, but for the educated lay reader? My suggestions: General: Abou El Fadl, Khaled. Conference of the Books: The Search for Beauty in Islam. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2001. Algar, Hamid. Wahhabism: A Critical Essay. 1st ed. Oneonta, NY: Islamic Publications International, 2001. Bulliet, Richard W. The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. Ernst, Carl W. Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World. Islamic Civilization & Muslim Networks. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. Firestone, Reuven. Jihad…

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Intra-faith Shi'ism

What is Shi’ism?

islamoyankee

In the contemporary period Shi’ah is the standard short form for Shi’ah Ali, the Partisans of Ali. The Shi’ah have a history that goes back as far as the time of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), and form one of the two main schools of thought in Islam; the other group being the Sunni, short for Ahl us-Sunnah wa Jama’ah, the People of Tradition and Consensus. The main division between these two groups relates to questions of religious authority, and who has that authority. In this post I want to give a brief outline of Shi’ah understandings of authority. Rather than cover…

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