Highlights from a panel I was on in Sept. 2008 on “Muslims in the Media,” part of a series called “The Cost of War.” The full audio of the panel is available on this page.
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He doesn’t get it
The article starts out so very promising on the varieties of interpretation that we call shari’ah. Then it so quickly devolves into conflating constitutional law with religious law, without really explaining how such conflations take place. The article also talks about the religious Shi’ah and the secular Kurds and Sunnis. What about the secular Shi’ah and the religious Kurds and Sunnis? There are huge varieties of interpretation even within the traditions. Finally, page 2 is mostly about cultural practices that the author makes sound like shari’ah. This is a blog, I can say things and pre-suppose knowledge, and get into…
The Mahdi
Father Jake had a question regarding the Mahdi and the use of the name “Mahdi Army” by Muqtada as-Sadr. He’s gone out and done a fair amount of research, and I wanted to add my two cents. From a theological perspective, the idea of the Mahdi is incredibly ill-defined, because the idea of the end days are ill-defined in the Qur’an. While we have a sense that the mountains will crumble, stars will fall from the sky and the sky itself will tear, there is no equivalent to the Book of Revelations in the Qur’an. (For a wonderful discussion of…
Gaza Crisis [1/21]
A Christian reflection on Gaza. We have to remember, this is not a Jewish-Muslim issue. It’s an Israeli-Palestinian one, which means Christians are involved. Ted Swedenburg gives us some must reads, many of which have already appeared on islamicate. However, he throws in a cool kufiya pic. MJ Rosenberg on the uses of “anti-Semitism.” He can’t wait for an end to the lobby. On Bono and Kristol. Laila points me to Sandy Tolan on Obama and Gaza. I don’t know how to describe this. In Doha, Darya Shaykh of One Voice said you can focus on the horror or you…