Related Posts

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,…

NYT on Bosnian Islam

Islamic Revival Tests Bosnia’s Secular Cast – NYTimes.com It seems that there are several issues at stake here. 1. In a republic where one can exercise religion more freely than one has been able to do so in almost two generations, what is the line between expressing religion and reactionary religion? Or, more critically, what is the relationship between the state and religion? 2. There is the the usual undercurrent that devout Muslims are dangerous Muslims. Bars are the signifiers of a truly open society. I think as a metric, it’s a bit bizarre, but it’s the lens of the…

Next Time You Are in … Cairo – TIME

Next Time You Are in … Cairo – TIME. A walk down the main thoroughfare of Darb al-Ahmar is a fascinating, raucous look at daily life in the Egyptian capital: you get honked aside by trucks and motorcycles, sideswiped by donkey carts and greeted enthusiastically by children. The area is home to the poorest population in the city, but these days many of its once decrepit mosques and palaces, from the Fatamid to the Ottoman eras, are being restored under the auspices of the Aga Khan Development Network’s (AKDN) Historic Cities project.