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Jews, Muslims, and Orthodoxy

Over at Talk Islam, Abu Noor talks about what the face of Islam in America will look like. He picks up two issues that I have argued previously: 1. The Catholic-Protestant divide is not a useful analogy for discussing the Sunni-Shi’ah divide. 2. We do not need a Reformation in Islam. (See more recently, my talk on Muslims in the Media (part 2)) Where I have difficulty with his argument is the extension of the analogy with Judaism. I agree that the movement approach (Conservative, Reform, Orthodox, etc.) better fits the Muslim experience. We generally speak of turuq (paths), of…

Reaction Against al-Qaeda

Muslims in Egypt from all shades of the theological spectrum are speaking out against al-Qaeda in Iraq’s anti-Christian declaration: “But instead of turning against Christians, calls to protect them echoed from throughout Egypt’s Islamic community. “‘This is something to be rejected and strongly denounced, and it serves none but those who want to spark discord and target national unity,’ the head of Al-Azhar University, Ahmed al-Tayeb, said. “Pope Schnouda III, the head of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church, used his weekly address in Cairo on Wednesday to praise Al-Azhar and the ‘sympathy’ Christians have received from Egyptian newspapers, intellectuals and the…

PAMF

Stands for Punk A$$ Mo Fo. I think a better term than hoodlums in this case. Martijn always has such interesting posts. However, on the issue of counter-identity, isn’t that essentially OBL’s point? He hates women, so he’s a man. He hates the “West,” so he’s an Arab. He hates Christians and Jews, so he’s a “Muslim.” A little more seriously, hasn’t he simply adopted Islam as an oppositional identity? Isn’t he more aligned with Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam than with the Hanbali school? For OBL, it seems Islam is what others are not, and his association with Taliban,…