A good friend of mine was (not so) recently awarded a major honor by his university. Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person. Who says science and (Muslim) religion can’t mix?
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My God Hates More Than Your God
My friend Eboo Patel, founder of the Interfaith Youth Core, has a blog over at Newsweek, and I’ve been meaning to plug it for a while now. What’s prompted me to do so now is his most recent posting Discrimination Against Muslims, which has forced me to pen some thoughts that I’ve been kicking around for awhile now. Aziz, too, has a piece on people’s understanding of the West and Islam, which highlights some of the issues I’ve been thinking about. For me, Eboo’s key quote is: Read how the commentators insist on highlighting only the dark sides of Islam,…
Law and Cultural Purity
Not all fundamentalism is about violence. Sometimes it’s about using the law. Unfortunately, some of our elected representatives are aiming to use the law to define what it means to be “American” by excluding Muslims. They seek to turn back the clock on American inclusion, forgetting that when you can exclude one group, you can exclude any group. We must accept that we live in a global village. Without that basic premise, we miss many of the political patterns emerging both in the US and around the world. We can react to the “new” in two ways: embrace it or…
Writing on Israel and Palestine, and now Lebanon
Traditionally I have not commented on the Palestinian and Israeli conflict. As you can tell by Who You?’s and Ghost Dog‘s posts, it’s not a site-wide reluctance. My reluctance has stemmed from the belief that the issue is too emotionally charged to have a meaningful conversation on the issue without having to spend a lot of time cleaning the mud off and fighting the fires from flames. I am not personally invested in the issue; to me, as I would argue to most Muslims, the fight is not between Muslims and Jews. It is between Israelis and Palestinians. I am…