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,…

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…