Related Posts

Park51: Sermons and Essential Observations

The good folks at Jews on First were kind enough to include an essay I wrote at Religion Dispatches as part of their resource kit. Park51: Sermons and Essential Observations. Broad attacks have been launched against the validity of Islam as a religion and the situation of Muslim-Americans has been made more precarious in ways that many Jews have found to be all too familiar. In the course of our research on the issue, we have found many articles and sermons to be very helpful in charting the course of the controversy and in articulating principles that can help guide…

Interview on NPR on Riyaaz Qawwali

I was recently interviewed on NPR about Riyaaz Qawwali, a group out of Austin, TX. Hussein Rashid, a professor of religion at Hofstra University, says that many qawwaliartists working in South Asia today have limited themselves. He believes this American group is bringing the music back to its roots.  “You know, I think there’s been so much concern about what is Islam, and what isn’t, politically speaking and artistically speaking,” Rashid says, “that there’s been a push in modern qawwali to actually sanitize it and make it very sterile — and almost rule-bound — rather than ecstatic and devotional. For me, I think…