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Hussein Rashid: A Gay Mosque?

Hussein Rashid: A Gay Mosque?. The recent story of a gay mosque in Paris raises conflicted feelings in me. On one hand, I recognize the need for safe spaces of worship, where people are not constantly being threatened for who they are. However, I also fear that creating a separate mosque perpetuates stigma by allowing other Muslims to avoid having discussions about what a truly devotional space could look like.

A tweet feat: #Quran goes on Twitter for #Ramadan

A tweet feat: Quran goes on Twitter for Ramadan – USATODAY.com. Ramadan, which begins with a sunup-to-sundown fast Monday, calls on the Muslim faithful to immerse themselves in scripture — ideally by reading the entire Quran.   In 2009, Hussein Rashid, a professor of Islamic Studies at Virginia Theological Seminary, noticed rabbis using Twitter to highlight snippets of Torah text to celebrate Shavuot, when Jews say Moses received God’s word at Mount Sinai.  “I saw they were creating a virtual way to pray and study together, and I thought it would be fun to invite a few friends to tweet…

On a New York Times Roll

The NYT had an interesting series of unrelated articles about Muslims over the last week. Deprogramming Jihadists I respect that the article is trying to show how the Saudis are attempting to deal with demon they helped create, but really does not address some of the inconsistencies in the approach. For example: Saudi schools teach a version of world history that emphasizes repeated battles between Muslims and nonbelieving enemies. Whether to Afghanistan in the 1980s or present-day Iraq, Saudi Arabia has exported more jihadist volunteers than any other country; 15 of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11 were Saudis. and…