A Muslim Astrophysicist?

One of the activities that some Shi’ah participate in during Muharram is to chant “Ya Hasan! Ya Husayn!” “Oh Hasan! Oh Husayn!” These were the Prophet’s (PBUH) grandsons, both of whom were assassinated. When the British came to South Asia they heard “Hobson-Jobson” and thus was born the Anglo-Indian Dictionary. Hobson-Jobson is the dictionary of all the words that have entered English from South Asia. The list is quite entertaining and exhaustive. There has been an attempt to supplement it with some of the words that have gained currency in the 20th century in a book called Sahibs, Nabobs and…

The discussions surrounding Abu Ghuraib are getting more and more depressing. Seymour Hersh’s article in this week’s New Yorker talks about how the torture was the result of orders from the Pentagon getting out of control. Newsweek is reporting President Bush signed the orders to commit torture. (TPM, Father Jake, Loose Democracy, Juan Cole on the same.) Colin Powell thinks the Arab world should be more outraged over the beheading of Nick Berg. He’s right. Why is this even an issue? There seems to be a race to be the most barbarous and callous people in the world. As an…